Tonight that the Huntsville City Schools Board of Education, the board presented a resolution to honor those individuals who are retiring from Huntsville City Schools this year. The resolution was read at the beginning of the “Celebrations” part of the meeting that they have at the beginning of most of their meetings. The resolution presented tonight to the board for its approval by Dr. Cooper was read as follows:

Resolution

Whereas the Huntsville City BOE Huntsville Alabama wishes to honor all personnel retiring from the HCS, and

Whereas these retirees have diligently served the boys and girls of this community for a significant number of years, and

Whereas, their services have been rendered in an unselfish manner, not only to the students and the school system, but to many areas of community life, and

Whereas, their loyalty and dedication to providing quality public education have exerted a tremendous and positive influence upon their associates, and

Whereas they are held in high esteem by their friends, and colleagues.

Now, therefore, Be It Resolved that the Huntsville City Board of Education, the superintendent and staff, as well as administrative, teaching and support staff do hereby express appreciation to retiring personnel, and

Be It Further Resolved that be extended best wishes for good health and happiness throughout the retirement years, with a sense of personal achievement that come with knowledge of a job well done.

Adopted this twenty-first day of March 2013

Join me in celebrating our retirees.

This resolution was followed by what could best be described as seven seconds of polite applause from the board and those in attendance. Once that “uproar” died down, Dr. Cooper moved on to about 20 minutes of honoring our sports stars from around the city.

Interestingly enough, all of the sports stars that were honored tonight actually received an invitation to attend the board meeting so that they could receive copies of their resolution and be honored in person. Some were even given the opportunity to share a few words with the community about their achievement.

Interestingly enough, none of our retirees who have “diligently served” this community for a “significant number of years;” none of our retirees who have rendered their services “in an unselfish manner;” none of the retirees who have “exerted a tremendous and positive influence” were actually invited to attend this meeting.

Now granted, if they had been invited to attend, the Fire Marshall would likely have needed to cite Dr. Wardynski for code violation, as I don’t believe the board room at Merts is certified to hold more than about 50 people at a time, but surely something could have been worked out. Perhaps we could have had them line up on the steps of Merts for a photo shoot?

177 Volunteer to Leave

You see as of the reading of the HR report tonight, a total of one hundred and seventy-seven teachers, administrators and support staff have decided to either retire or resign since September of last year.

And 177 would have clearly never fit in that tiny board room with its uncomfortable chairs.

And there’s no way that the superintendent would have wanted a photo of the 177 standing on the steps of Merts all together at one time.

I mean honestly, what kind of message would that send to our community? It’s much better that those steps simply remain empty, and that our “resolutions” be free from showing the faces of the 177 who have decided to leave this district in the past seven months.

Who knows, after all, what they might end up saying if given a mic? They might let us know that if they had their choice that they would have preferred to continue teaching a few more years. They might have let us know that they really didn’t want to leave this year, but the move away from teaching towards endless testing made the decision easy. They might have let us know that they simply couldn’t take the hostile working environment that the superintendent has created here for the simple purpose of driving away some of our best and brightest teachers and most dedicated support staff that had made this system one of the best.

What Huntsville Used to Be

I write what I know, and nine years ago my wife and I moved here to Huntsville (not to Madison, Huntsville) because of a simple reason, our first child was about to be born. And so we moved here because we knew that Huntsville, despite being in a state that isn’t exactly known as an educational powerhouse even in the south (thank goodness for Mississippi), Huntsville was an exception to that stereotype. Huntsville bucked that trend.

We knew that our children would receive and excellent and competitive public education.

But because of the rubber-stamp attitude of the board before (and after) Wardynski, this is no longer true. And with the total disregard that our board offers to our teachers, I’m afraid that Huntsville will not be the exception in the state any longer. We now tend to fit right in.

I know that there are some of my readers who, like certain members of our board, believe that a younger teacher is absolutely a better teacher. I know that there are some readers who believe, like certain administrators, that older teachers tend to turn a school into a “wax museum.” I know that some in this town believe just as one of the now retired board members said last year that it’s great to have young, inexperienced TFAers in the classroom.

I do not agree.

Teacher of the Year Among the 177

It seems that for once the Huntsville Council of PTAs and I actually agree on something. You see this year, the Elementary Teacher of the Year for the city of Huntsville is one of those teachers that the board of education was “resolved” to honor tonight. She has taught multiple generations of families and is still going strong. She stays after school nearly every day to help her students (and even those who were never in her classroom) understand difficult concepts. She’s constantly offering new books about new approaches to teaching to her peers and to her parents to help to find a way through the perilous path of elementary school.

She lives and breathes elementary education and has more knowledge about meeting students’ needs in her little pinky finger than Wardynski and our board of “education” will ever know.

She is an amazing teacher and leader, and we’re losing her and all of her knowledge and wisdom because, as David Blair once said, Wardynski is doing exactly what this board of education hired Wardynski to do. His primary job, his primary goal is to run off our best teachers.

But you know what the amazing thing is? I know a ton of our teachers and support staff in this district, and I know many of the 177 who have quit or retired. Of those that I know who have quit or are retiring at the end of the year, all of the wonderful things I had to say about the Huntsville Elementary Teacher of the Year (not to take anything alway from her, but I know she wouldn’t mind) apply to those other teachers, librarians, and staff as well.

Let me say it again: every teacher, librarian and staff member that I personally know who is planning to retire are among the most dedicated, committed people in our district. And we’ve lost them.

And the board continues to unanimously approve HR report after HR report without asking a single damn question about why our teachers are rushing to get out the door.

In May 2011, the board approved a reduction in force of 259 people. That was one of the darkest periods of our district.

So far in seven months 177 have left on their own. I’m horrified to write this, but by the end of May 2013 the 259 we RIFed in 2011 will seem small by comparison.

The absolute least that Wardynski and this Board could do is have the decency to look these 177 in the face. But then bullies do tend to also be cowards.

__________

To any teacher, administrator or support staff person who is leaving Huntsville City Schools: I invite you to share your story in the comments below. You may do so with the assurance of anonymity; honestly, I don’t even know who you are most of the time. I ask you to share your story with us for just one reason: we need you to help educate us one more time before you leave.

I hope that in the telling you may find closure and peace knowing that you have indeed given your all to help this city’s schools survive the wasteland that Wardynski and the Board are creating.

And sincerely, I thank you for your service to my children and to all our children across this community.

You will be missed.

The post 177 (And Counting) Volunteer to Leave appeared first on Geek Palaver.

When the superintendent wishes to throw himself a party, he tends to do it right. Last Thursday during the Board’s Work Session meeting (which they call “work sessions” so they can exclude public comments at the end), the Superintendent had Alabama Representatives singing his praises for his PTA Superintendent of the Year award last year, had board members singing his praises for winning yet another “major award” from eSchoolNews for being a “tech-savvy” superintendent of the year, and got to sing his own praises by telling the district just how amazing the school turnaround at Westlawn Middle is going. There was precious few non-scripted moments during the school board meeting this past Thursday, which is exactly what the superintendent wants: control.

(About the only non-scripted moment must have really chapped Dr. Wardynski’s backside as it ruined his plan to leverage local support for overturning the School Calendar “Opt-Out” bill into support for the Local Control School Flexibility Act. After Wardynski and Robinson made their claims that if you like having local control over the school calendar, then you should support the Flexibility Act, Senator Holtzclaw stood to point out that the Calendar “Opt-Out” bill and the School Flexibility Act are two separate bills. You could see Dr. Robinson’s face fall when he said this as she had been doing her best–as was Dr. Wardynski–to claim that the two bills were one. Thanks to Sen. Holtzclaw for stopping this farce. If only either of them bothered to read the local paper from time to time, they would have known that there were in fact two separate bills. I guess it’s too much to ask that our superintendent and school board actually read.)

For those who don’t know, a “turnaround” school is what happens to schools when they fail to achieve their AYP goals under Obama’s Race to the Top grant programs. Basically, a turnaround school loses all of its existing administration and the overwhelming majority of its teachers. In turn, the district receives a little over $1.5 million dollars for use at that school for personnel, extended learning time and “incentives” (bonuses paid to teachers for good results on the STAR test–yes, some teachers, not all, get a bonus if your child does better on a test).

The turnaround model isn’t beloved by everyone. Many low-income, minority communities across the nation are balking at the loss of local control and lack of parental involvement and input. And it seems that the data, and you know we’re all about DATA here in Huntsville, doesn’t support the claim that removing everyone from a school actually improves student performance.

But that was exactly what Dr. Wardynski was claiming on Thursday night. Here’s the video of Ms. Lynette Alexander walking the board and the enthusiastic faculty of Westlawn through the all important data that shows that the turnaround model is working. (If you would like to download the PowerPoint that Ms. Alexander was using, you may get a copy from here.)

STAR testing is AMAZING isn’t it? As are all the changes that Wardynski has made at Westlawn, including bringing in Teach for America (who made the first part of the presentation that night), and of course our beloved technology. These components led Cathy McNeal so aptly say, “I’ve never seen growth like this. It’s phenomenal.”

It’s Phenomenal

Now that we’re beyond the passion of the moment and we can think rationally about this report, let’s consider what we’ve heard.

Suddenly, because of just a few minor changes, miracles are occurring that lead a 40 year educational veteran to claim that she’s never seen growth like this.

Someone needs to let MsDr. McNeal know that when things look too good to be true . . . well, you know the cliché, don’t you?

There are a lot of interesting claims being made in this presentation. First, we start with Wardynski’s beloved STAR Enterprises Test that he brought to the district last year. This is a test that is administered across the district basically whenever the superintendent decides that he wants more data to play with. Officially it was supposed to be administered three times during the year: September, January, and March. However, the test has already been administered three times in September, October and January. It will likely be administered at least twice more in March and at the end of the year when our elementary students will sit for at least three consecutive weeks of testing with STAR, ARMT+ and the new ACT test.

District Testing

Setting aside for a moment the questions and doubts that any parent has with a district that is evaluating teachers on student test scores (remember when tests were used to evaluate students?), the district in its infinite wisdom has scheduled some form of testing every single month students are in school. Here’s a list:

• STAR Enterprise Benchmark l, Grades K-2 September 10 – 14, 2012
• STAR Enterprise Benchmark l, Grades 3-12 September 12 – 14, 2012
• DIBELS Next (K-1) and DIBELS Grade 2 Sept 17-21, 2012
• Alabama High School Graduation Exam (AHSGE) September 17-21
  • Mathematics Monday, 9/17/12
  • Reading Tuesday, 9/18/12
  • Language Wednesday, 9/19/12
  • Social Studies Thursday, 9/20/12
  • Science/Biology (both tests) Friday, 9/21/12
• PSAT October 17, 2012
• EXPLORE Grade 8 & PLAN Grade 10 – Career Inventory Section October 18, 2012
• EXPLORE Test, Grade 8 Academic Section October 23, 2012
• PLAN, Grade 10 Academic Section October 23, 2012
• EXPLORE & PLAN Make-Up Day October 24, 2012
• Alabama High School Graduation Exam (AHSGE) December 3-7, 2012
  • Science/Biology (both tests) Monday, 12/3/12
  • Mathematics Tuesday, 12/4/12
  • Reading Wednesday, 12/5/12
  • Language Thursday, 12/6/12
  • Social Studies Friday, 12/7/12
• DIBELS Next (K-1) and DIBELS Grade 2 January 3 – 11, 2013
• STAR Enterprise Benchmark ll, Grades K-12 January 14-18, 2013
• Alabama High School Graduation Exam (AHSGE) March 18-22, 2013
  • Science/Biology (both tests) Monday, 3/18/13
  • Mathematics Tuesday, 3/19/13
  • Reading Wednesday, 3/20/13
  • Social Studies Thursday, 3/21/13
  • Language Friday, 3/22/13
• STAR Assessment Grades K-8 ONLY March 18-22, 2013
• ACCESS for ELLs March 25 – May 3, 2013
• Alternate ACCESS for ELLS March 25 – May 3, 2013
• Alabama Alternate Assessment (AAA) April 15 – May 3, 2013
• DIBELS Next (K-1) and DIBELS Grade 2 April 15 – 24, 2013
• HCS ACT QualityCore End-of Course Assessments 2 – 45 minute tests – April 29 – May 2, 2013
  • English 11 (HCS Wavier Assessment) To be Announced
  • English 12 To be Announced
  • Algebra II (HCS Wavier Assessment) To be Announced
  • Pre Calculus To be Announced Chemistry To be Announced
  • Physics To be Announced US History (HCS Waiver Assessment) To be Announced
• MANDATED ACT End-of-Course tests (1 day each) SDE will announce dates To be Announced
  • English 9 To be Announced
  • English 10 To be Announced
  • Algebra I To be Announced
  • Geometry To be Announced
  • Biology (HCS Waiver Assessment) To be Announced
  • International Baccalaureate (IB) Provisional April 30-May 22, 2013
• STAR Assessment Grades K-12 April 29 – May 3, 2013
• STAR Early Literacy April 29 – May 3, 2013
• AP Exam May 6 – 17, 2013
• Alabama Reading and Mathematics Test+ (ARMT+) Gr 3-8 May 6-14, 2013
  • ARMT+ Reading May 6, 2013
  • ARMT+ Reading May 7, 2013
  • ARMT+ Math May 8, 2013
  • ARMT+ Math May 9, 2013
  • ARMT+ Make Up May 10, 2013
  • ARMT+ Science (Grades 5 & 7) May 13, 2013
  • ARMT+ Make Up May 14, 2013

This is the official list, but it doesn’t include everything like the additional STAR Assessment that was administered in October. If you total the days by age group, you’ll find the following:

• K-2: 43 of 180 days
• 3rd-8th: 42 of 180 days
• 9th-12th: 59 of 180 days.

This is what the district was “celebrating” last Thursday.

And if you think that’s bad, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Race to the Bottom

Remember when Ms. Alexander was talking about the “phenomenal” growth? I wonder how such growth could be achieved?

Well, it happens because every student who doesn’t benchmark on the first STAR test in September (or presumably October) has the benefit of taking a STAR practice test every single week of the year.

That’s right. Our lowest performing students are taking the STAR test every single week until they begin to “grow” in their performance. The STAR test evaluates two subjects: reading and mathematics. It doesn’t evaluate science, technology, history, biology, physics, social studies, civics, or even a skill as basic as writing. We are testing students from kindergarten through twelfth grade (yes, some 12th graders are being evaluated regular on their ability to read).

You know the educational reformers, like Wardynski, used to claim that their reforms would make our schools the envy of the world. I wonder how many other nations in the world are envious of twelfth graders who can read? Race to the Bottom would be far more appropriate and honest, don’t you think?

But wait, it gets far, far worse.

“Phenomenal” Growth Explained

Remember that growth that was too good to be true. Well, once you realize that these students are practicing this test every week, it becomes a bit easier to understand.

But even growth at that level isn’t sufficient to gain Wardynski’s praise. It has to be higher. And so, we add to this mixture “incentives” for teachers to increase their growth. At Westlawn alone, as a part of the “turnaround,” teachers are receiving financial incentives to improve their students’ grades. So far the district has distributed $80,000.00 of a budgeted $355,392.00 to incentivize teachers to help their students grow.

Westlawn has 43 “teaching staff.” If half of them have received an incentive to improve test scores, we’re taking about a $4,000 bonus for half a year’s work with an additional $275,392 remaining to be spent during the second half of the year.

Imagine how much of an incentive it would be to someone making $36,144 a year to be offered a $4,000 bonus. That’s an 11% raise. And that’s assuming that half of the teachers are receiving this bonus. There’s no way the number is that high.

But wait again, there’s still more.

In addition to being “incentivized,” some teachers at some schools are being allowed (or are breaking the rules and doing it anyway) to give the actual STAR test to their students multiple times. When a student takes the test multiple times, even if the test is randomized, they’re going to show growth.

This is the environment that Wardynski has instituted in our district. It’s an environment where school is pitted against school. (You’re only “successful” if your scores are higher than other schools.) It’s an environment where teacher is pitted against teacher. (You’re only successful if you’re better than your peers. That’s why some teachers names appear on the STAR data report while most don’t. Only the best are worth acknowledging.)

It’s an environment where teachers have a significant financial incentive to produce “growth” as measured by a flawed tool. It’s an environment where teachers jobs are being threatened if they don’t produce “phenomenal” growth. It’s an environment where a tool that was designed to evaluate students is instead being used as the primary evaluation tool for teachers. (Can some of our world famous engineers please explain to Wardynski–who likes to claim that he is one–the fallacy of using a tool designed to evaluate students being used to evaluate teachers?)

Testing To Death

This will result in the death of education in our district.

1. Education is only concerned with passing the test in Huntsville City Schools. We test constantly leaving no time for anything else. Forget about art, music, or dance, there isn’t time for social studies, history, or science. That’s right, Rocket City doesn’t have time for science anymore.
2. Testing isn’t focused on evaluating students anymore but rather teachers.
3. Teachers are being placed in a position where cheating to improve test scores will be seen as a necessary survival tool. And we know from our neighbors in Atlanta just how that will turn out.

The district knows that these are issues, but they continue to head down a path towards destruction simply because our “Strong Leader” wishes it. No one is willing to stand up to him and tell him that his policies are killing our schools.

Opt-Out

So what can we do?

1. It’s time to organize and boycott the test. The STAR test, no matter how wonderfully your child is doing, is not being used to evaluate your child. It’s being used to evaluate your child’s teacher. In other words, your child is being used as a tool to abuse the very people who are trying to help them. It’s time to say that you opt-out of this abusive system.
2. It’s time that teachers, like their brothers and sisters in Seattle, Chicago, and New York band together and opt out as well.
3. It’s far past time for organizations that claim to support teachers like the Huntsville Education Association and the Alabama Education Association to quit making it easy for Dr. Wardynski to use our children to abuse our teachers. Twice last Thursday, Dr. Wardynski praised Rex Cheatham, HEA Uniserve Director, and Shirley Wellington, President of HEA, for their cooperation and support as they move the district toward a model that bases evaluations of teachers on student test scores. Who exactly are AEA and HEA working for here?

We can still save our schools, but we have to work together. Parents have to realize that having a child score on a 10th grade reading level and an 9th grade math level in the 4th grade doesn’t mean anything at all except that your child can take a standardized test. It doesn’t mean that they’re 5 or 6 grade levels ahead.

You’re being lied to. What it means is that the district is not teaching them science, history, social studies, art, music or even writing.

We can still save our schools if teachers realize that they do have power to fight this abuse.

We can still save our schools if organizations designed to stand for teachers actually begin doing so.

We can still save our schools if we care more about education than we do turning a profit for business and industry, which is all that Wardynski and the Board of Education are concerned about.

The post STAR Testing A District To Death appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Since Dr. Wardynski arrived, the district has operated under two sets of rules and according to two standards. Hypocrisy had been normalized here.

• We’ve seen it in response to the rules applied to The Pinnacle Schools with regards to their staff.
• We’ve seen this double standard when we see that the superintendent’s evaluation is written specifically for him while everyone else has to take a standardized test.
• We’ve seen double standards about sexual harassment complaints that are brought against former CSFOs. (Maybe that’s why he resigned? Who knows.)
• We’ve seen double standards concerning filing a grievance against the Superintendent and the Board; they’ll happily receive and address complaints raised about teachers, but complaints raised about the superintendent are summarily dismissed.
• We’ve seen double standards in the hiring policies of senior administrators and teachers where teachers are hired for the state minimum, while superintendents, deputy superintendents and former CSFOs are allowed to set their own salaries.

Double Standards/Hypocrisy Continues

Last Thursday, the double standards continued with the revelation from Ms. Alta Morrison that the Teach for America recruits (TFAers), of which there are approximately forty currently working in the district, received the benefit of a “wonderful reception” at some undisclosed location last Wednesday, September 19th. It seems that Ms. Morrison, Dr. Robinson, and Mr. Blair at least were in attendance. Mr. Birney was not present at the board meeting on the 20th, so we do not know if he attended the reception, and Mrs. McCaulley made no mention of the reception in her comments.

Maybe these receptions are the reason that TFA is so busy asking for your dimes in JC Penney’s?

So what was said about this “reception?”

Ms. Morrison began her comments by telling the community how she was expecting a room full of old, tired teachers, and what she instead saw were “fresh, young teachers who were excited about teaching.”

Honestly, when the one board member who voted against bringing in TFAers is saying how impressed she is with how “young” and “fresh” they are, all hope for our current teachers really is lost.

To her credit, later in the citizens’ comments time, Ms. Morrison revised her comments to say that she didn’t mean to imply that our current teachers weren’t “fresh,” but the damage was long since done.

Dr. Robinson next picked up the TFA banner and ran with it claiming that the TFAers are doing “great things with this new technology!” Implying of course that anyone who claims that there are problems with the system that are completely beyond their control are just “ankle-biters” who don’t really understand teaching.

Once she finished her beatification of the “young, fresh TFAers,” Mr. Blair decided it was time for him to continue the praise of the reception and the TFAers as well.

Seems all you need to do to win a majority of the board’s support is to feed them at a reception.

Shoulda thought of that years ago.

Normalizing The Extreme

Later, Dr. Wardynski added his two cents by claiming that the TFAers aren’t really TFAers anymore. Now, they’re just “our teachers.”

This is an intentional attempt to normalize the use of “teachers” who are not actually trained to be teachers. It’s an attempt to show the district that anyone can teach.

It’s not a gift; it’s not an art; it’s not even a skill that needs to be taught.

In Wardynski’s world, all that’s required to be a teacher is a warm body that doesn’t cost much to keep in the classroom. Teaching can be done by machine; all that’s needed in his system is someone to tell students to push play on their computers screens.

Wardynski Repeats Himself

Dr. Wardynski does not, no matter what he says in emails or editorials, does not appreciate the work of teachers. He doesn’t understand teaching. He doesn’t believe teaching matters. And that’s simple to see when you listen to his goals for the district. He claims that:

Schools are long overdue for that transformation. The American education system, for the most part, is still run the way it was more than 100 years ago, before mankind even flew in an airplane much less in space.

You know, Dr. Wardynski, since you’re sitting at a computer, creating your editorials and emailing them to the paper to publish without comment, don’t you think you could take a minute to google the Wright Brothers first flight? If you did, you would see that “mankind” (nice sexist language there supes) first flew on December 17, 1903, or just shy of 109 years ago.

American Educational Reforms: Full of Sound and Fury

His estimate that education still happens the same way it did 100 years ago is even more inaccurate. If he would bother himself (you know, since he cares so much about education) and take just a few minutes to read any history of education in America, he would find that the only constant in American education over the last century is a maddening race after the Next Big Thing.

But again, Dr. Wardynski’s only real concern is power and control, not education or even being historically accurate.

One final question, Dr. Wardynski: If the TFAers are just “teachers” now, if there isn’t a difference between TFAers and actual teachers, then it should be easy to tell me the last time the district hosted or participated in a formal reception for all of our actual teachers.

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Dr. Wardynski concluded his evidence-free editorial with the statement: “The countdown has begun.” Funny how a launch and a time bomb both have countdowns, isn’t it?

The post Double Standards Continue For Teach For America appeared first on Geek Palaver.

When your goal is to replace as many qualified teachers as possible, even leaving them with the last week of school to celebrate and say goodbye to their kids is just too rich an opportunity to pass up. After all, if you can get one final kick in as someone is walking out the door, perhaps they’ll keep on going.

And so on Wednesday of last week, tenured teachers were called into principal’s offices all over the district to be informed that they were being transferred to other schools in the district. They were often given their orders in the morning, sometimes with their kids sitting in the hallway waiting for their teacher to return, and told to sign them in the afternoon.

If they didn’t sign them, they often received a visit from Mr. Al Lankford the following day requesting that they sign a document that they had received their orders. They didn’t have to agree with the orders, Mr. Lankford wasn’t forcing them to agree to the move, but they did have to sign a document stating that they had received the orders.

Having Mr. Lankford deliver the paperwork was, evidently, standard operating procedure.

Despite the implication offered at the called board meeting at 8:00am on Monday, not all of these teachers have agreed with these transfers. Many excellent teachers, including one dear to my son’s heart, have decided enough is enough. They are looking for and accepting positions with the surrounding school districts right now.

Our superintendent is doing an excellent job of driving off good, dedicated, devoted, and successful teachers to neighboring systems.

As a friend of mine said the other day, perhaps we should call this “Wardynski-flight.”

The only problem with that name is that I believe Dr. Wardynski would take it as a compliment. Trust me sir, breaking my boy’s heart over the loss of the single, stable figure in his educational life is not a compliment.

But that wasn’t the end of the fun times for teachers in the district.

On Monday, the board met at 8:00am to fire 122 non-tenured teachers.

(Interestingly, during the meeting when 122 people were fired, they had, from what I could see on the video, exactly two district security officers present in the room. I guess they didn’t expect a disturbance from a sufficiently demoralized group like our teachers. No need for HPD to have five or six armed officers on hand for that.)

One-hundred and twenty-two.

Last year during the RIF, the board fired only 154 teachers, but since there were very few details offered about these terminations, it’s hard for us to know much about them. We’re simply supposed to trust that the evaluation process that the superintendent developed was fair.

Dr. Robinson went out of her way to stress that many of “these folks can potentially be rehired” because this is simply what we used to call “non-renewal.” She and the rest of the board went on to complain about how mean the word “termination” is and that they wished the state would change it.

Funny. Non-renewal seems fairly mean to those facing it. I’d bet that the board and Dr. Wardynski would find non-renewal fairly frustrating if they were facing it every nine months.

But no. Board members are elected for four year terms. Dr. Wardynski’s contract is for three.

But there’s no reason to get excited, upset, or (god-forbid) angry over something as simple as “non-renewal.”

One-hundred and twenty-two.

Here’s a silly question: if the superintendent and the board are so sure that these “non-renewals” are going to be rehired, why not find a way to just go ahead and renew them?

Impossible you say? No so, say I. Just take a look at the contract that we’ve signed with Teach for America. Anyone want to make a bet that the 40 TFAers hired this summer will not have to worry about having a job in the 2013-2014 school year?

Could it be that the board wants to distance themselves from the impact of their actions? After all, no one who thinks it that they will be re-hired is likely to raise much of a fuss right now. And if they aren’t rehired come fall, well, that’s just old-news at that point isn’t it?

One-hundred and twenty-two.

I’ve heard from many schools in the district and from other sources that that 122 number comes remarkably close to representing all of the non-tenured teachers in Huntsville City.

So not one of the teachers we’ve hired in the last nine months was worth keeping?

One-hundred and twenty-two.

Additionally, as Dr. Wardynski said he would, nearly every principal in the district has now been moved to a new school.

We are again just supposed to accept that these transfers are being done for good, solid, justifiable reasons. We’re supposed to believe that being moved from a high school principal’s position to the principal of a ninth grade academy is a promotion. We’re supposed to accept that moving a principal from one of the finest middle schools in the city to one of the weakest is a celebration of a job well done.

We’re supposed to accept that Dr. Wardynski promising Mr. King a principal’s position back in a September 15th board meeting, represented the culmination of a search for the most qualified principals available. (That’s right. Since the middle of September, Dr. Wardynski has been talking publicly about King “transitioning” to a principal during the summer. It must be nice to have the promise of a job waiting out there for you.)

It seems that what is guiding Dr. Wardynski’s decisions here has more to do with rewarding his friends than what is best for the students in the district.

That and doing his best to drive off good, talented individuals who have dedicated their lives, rather than just two years, to meeting the needs of all of our children.

And the board continues to support him and shrug at those who do not.

This was perhaps best captured by Dr. Robinson’s defending this constant shuffling of teachers and principals:

Robinson: “I know that schools get real attached to their school leaders. But this is a corporate model. And it’s what corporations use to develop leadership strengths.”

Wardynski: “Right.”

Robinson: [Shrugging as if that resolves the matter once and for all, says before the board moves on] “That’s what we’re going to do.”

While I realize that our country seems confused at the moment about the differences between a corporation and a person, perhaps it would be helpful to Dr. Robinson and Dr. Wardynski if they could remember this one simple truth:

Education’s goal isn’t to increase profits for shareholders. Education’s goal is to encourage children to continue to ask questions about the world in which we live. While that may result in profit, it may also, just as easily, result in a loss of profit from an ethical decision to put people, to put children, first.

I know it’s difficult for someone making $175,000 a year with a $10,000 bonus out in front of him for simply doing his job (or someone who spent $60,000 to win a seat on the board) to remember this, but believe it or not, there is more to life than just the bottom line.

Treating people with dignity, honor and respect are just three of those things that matter more.

Watching the dawning of understanding come into a child’s eyes is another.

On Friday, May 25, 2012 at 11:30am, the board will meet again to, I suspect, continue to distance themselves from the thousands of lives that they are disrupting. The changes aren’t anywhere near over yet.

The post Another Bad Week For Teachers and Principals appeared first on Geek Palaver.

So there’s another board meeting tomorrow night at 5:30pm at the Merts Center, 200 White Street. I’ll be there, and supposing that there aren’t any technical issues that halt the broadcast as there was two weeks ago, you can watch it at home on ETV (Comcast 17, Knology 99), and at the Huntsville City Schools website. I’ll be whining away on Twitter @russwinn during the meeting. You can also catch my posts on the Geek Palaver Facebook Page. All of this supposes of course that I will be allowed to attend the meeting.

The agenda for tomorrow has been published, and they’re going to talk (again?!?) about evaluating the superintendent, the new school calendar,  and just how wonderful hiring countless numbers of consultants has been for the district.

So, again, while teachers salaries are still set at the state minimum, while teachers STEP raises are still frozen, on a night when they are going to discuss “Principals’ Terminations,” the superintendent will likely walk home with a $10,000 bonus in his pocket for successfully passing the test that the board specifically designed for him to be able to pass.

(One of the standards of evaluation that was placed upon Dr. Wardynski was to raise AP participation rates. As he himself indicated even before they voted to approve that as one of his goals, he had already accomplished that. It’s nice when your standard for success includes items that you’ve already completed.)

Yes, they will be discussing this bonus even before they discuss the new state assembly mandated school calendar.

Concerning the calendar: it seems that Dr. Wardynski and the board should actually thank the assembly for providing political cover for his decision to remove fall break from the calendar. Remember tomorrow night when Dr. Robinson calls for citizens to complain about their loss of a fall break to their representatives in Montgomery that she, along with every member of the board except Mr. Blair, had already approved a school calendar that removed fall break.

Here’s a listing of the significant dates including closed dates:

• August 20, 2012: First Day of School
• September 3, 2012: Labor Day
• No Fall Break (This was already gone in Dr. Wardynski’s original calendar for 2012-2013)
• November 12, 2012: Veterans Day
• November 21-23, 2012: Thanksgiving Break
• December 24-January 2: Christmas Break
• January 21, 2013: MLK Day
• March 25-29, 2013: Spring Break
• May 23, 2013: Last Day of School

There are no built-in weather days, but it is unclear at this time how weather days will be handled. It is at least possible by one interpretation of the “Beach Bill” that those days might be allowed to occur after May 23, 2013. Another interpretation would mean that the school day would be required to be extended until the hours are made up. I would be quite surprised if even our esteemed representatives know for sure.

It’s always nice when education suffers as a direct result of industry lobbying. I love the Alabama Gulf Coast, but this is an evil decision they have forced upon the state. It’s remarkably similar to Dr. Wardynski’s decisions to privatize so many of the district’s functions. Again, if it weren’t for the district taking his control, Dr. Wardynski would, I’m sure, love the sentiment behind the decision: namely that public education should be run by private organizations, industries, and businesses.

There will, after all, be at least four new contracts approved tomorrow night with private organizations.

After this discussion they will move on to an encomium of all the amazing, wonderful, fantastic, astonishing contractors who don’t cost us anything, they save us money. I’m sure it will sound nothing like a (warning: stereotype ahead) woman coming home from the store with three-hundred dollars on the credit card talking about all the money she “saved.” Verifiable evidence will be in short supply.

Oh, and there’s an ominously titled item called “Principals’ Terminations” under new business.

And finally, despite my best efforts to clear all of this mess up before tomorrow’s meeting, I still don’t know if the board or Dr. Wardynski will allow the public to video record the meeting tomorrow night.

Here’s the question I asked of Mrs. McCaulley as School Board President:

Will I be allowed to record future public board meetings in accordance with Alabama State Code 36-35A-6? [This section states: "A meeting of a governmental body, except while in executive session, may be openly recorded by any person in attendance by means of a tape recorder or any other means of sonic, photographic or video reproduction provided the recording does not disrupt the conduct of the meeting. The governmental body may adopt reasonable rules for the implementation of this section."].

To this question, Mrs. McCaulley responded on Sunday, May 13, 2012 at 9:28pm:

Response: As president of the board you have my permission to operate within the perimeters of the law. After I read the Alabama State Code Section 36-35A-6, you cited above, I noticed it used the term “may be openly recorded”   therefore one could interpret openly recording is not a mandate or requirement but optional.

You’ll note that she has not stated if I may actually record the meeting tomorrow night without being asked to leave the meeting again, and without being told I was “intimidating the board” as Mr. Lankford said, or called “intimidating and threatening” as Mrs. Anderson stated in an email to the Huntsville Times last Tuesday.

I followed up this non-response from the board President by asking:

“If on Thursday, May 17th, I attempt to record the board meeting in exactly the same manner as I did on Thursday, May 3rd, should I expect to be asked to leave the meeting?”

I have received no response to this question.

So, if I should attempt to record the meeting tomorrow night, I have no idea how the Superintendent will direct his staff to react.

Please note, it is not my intention to “intimidate,” “disrupt,” or “threaten” anyone or anything.

I am grateful to Mrs. McCaulley for saying that I have not intimidated her. I also appreciate the communications I received from Mrs. Morrison and Mr. Birney saying the same thing. Mr. Blair chose to state in the press that he had always found me “pleasant and cordial.”

So I’ve got that going for me.

I have not, however, heard anything at all from my board member Dr. Jennie Robinson. Neither have I heard anything from Dr. Wardynski.

I suppose that when Mr. Lankford said I was “intimidating the board” by recording them, and when Mrs. Anderson stated that I “had been described as intimidating and threatening” (that, by the way, was the first time that I’ve been informed that I was “threatening”) for doing so, that they were talking about how Dr. Robinson and Dr. Wardynski felt. They are, after all the only ones left.

I have asked for any specific documented evidence that I have intimidated, disrupted, or threatened anyone at the district level.

The only response I’ve received from Mrs. McCaulley is:

Again to your inquiry about any written incidents reports concerning you, to my knowledge there are none.

Thus there is, at least to Mrs. McCaulley’s knowledge, no documented evidence that I have done any of the things I’ve been accused of doing.

I have also, not received anything approaching an apology for the district staff’s response to me, but that’s okay. I’m not really sure that it would mean much at this point anyway.

And frankly, I’m certain that they were only following orders.

You see, I don’t actually care what they say about me. And truthfully, I don’t care if they allow me to record the meeting or not.

None of that is important to me.

What is important is that my children receive an appropriate education. I am convinced that cutting Special Education by seven million dollars (or the exact amount of surplus the district is anticipating at the end of the fiscal year) has kept my boy from having an appropriate education. I am convinced that merging my girl’s school without discussing it with parents first will keep my girl from having an appropriate education.

I am convinced that having a demoralized faculty and staff in our schools keeps my children from having an appropriate education.

I am convinced that having people who don’t want to be teachers, teach keeps my children from having an appropriate education.

I am convinced that having a CSFO who can spend $28,790 without documentation keeps my children from having an appropriate education.

I am convinced that having district leadership that attempts to intimidate parents and teachers for asking questions keeps my children from having an appropriate education. When people aren’t allowed to ask questions, education has been replaced by indoctrination.

This is what I’m concerned about. These are a few of the issues that really matter.

The post An Appropriate Education appeared first on Geek Palaver.

You remember when you were a child going to a store, and you saw a toy you wanted? Perhaps there are just two on the shelf. Maybe two Lukes from Star Wars. They look exactly the same to you, except for two small differences. One of them, for some reason, cost thirty cents more than the other.

In those days, thirty cents made a world of difference. After all, you could get the latest Detective Comics to go along with the Luke for that. So, what kid in his right mind would buy the more expensive Luke?

Well, no one.

But we’re forgetting about the other difference between the two Lukes. And that, as Frost says, makes all the difference.

The more expensive Luke had a sticker on the package that said, “New” or “Improved,” or god help us, “New and Improved.”

And suddenly that copy of Detective Comics would just have to wait because coming home with a “New and Improved” Luke would make me the envy of all the boys on the block.

I’d just have to make sure I kept the packaging to prove to everyone that my Luke was actually newer and improved-er than their Luke.

It’s funny how little things change as we grow up.

As I was walking through the grocery today, I noticed a can of Planters peanuts that had a flag on it’s side reading “NEW.”

Honestly, new peanuts? Somehow I don’t think the peanut has changed much, do you? But I’d bet that Planters marketing department will have 10 studies showing that putting the “New” label on the can increases sales or profits or both.

And that’s what this is all about. Sales and Profits.

Today, the Birmingham News ran just such a promotional, or puff, piece on Teach for America called, “Birmingham City schools praise Teach for America” by Marie Leech.

She tells the story of history teacher Wyatt Smith who “came in one day and said he had a special guest for us, and came back in dressed as Abe Lincoln and did a rap song before the exit exam with everything we’d learned. He doesn’t care about making a fool out of himself to make you learn.”

Leech calls Smith’s style, “unquestionably non traditional, but filled with energy.”

You know, she’s right, having a teacher who dresses up as a character is a great way of teaching students about that character. I think the first time I saw it put into practice was in Vacation Bible School about forty years ago. The pastor dressed up as Jesus and walked in carrying a cross.

I’m pretty sure I saw it again in nearly every elementary classroom, middle, and even a few high school classrooms (although by that point most of the students in my classes would have thought it silly). I even had a seminary professor who regularly came to class wearing a red ascot impersonating the Devil.

I’m sorry Ms. Leech, but there’s nothing, absolutely nothing “non-traditional” about dressing up as a character to get student’s interested in a topic. Teachers have been doing this for nearly as long as there have been people wishing to teach others. You might want to take a look at Plato’s writings about Socrates on occasion to see what I’m talking about. Socrates is constantly depicted as adopting roles in his efforts to educate the youth of Athens.

Leech also talks about Audrianna Archibald, one of the few (in 2009 about 3%) TFAers who also has an education degree. Ms. Archibald says, “In the college of education, they taught us lesson plans, but there was no sense of urgency. Also, tracker are not taught in education. That’s probably the biggest thing taught in TFA, is tracking each student’s progress and letting parents know how their child is progressing.”

Honestly, she says that a college of education doesn’t teach tracking a student’s progress.

Seriously?

She goes on to say, “I go to their birthday parties; I go to church with them. If you want them to be completely engulfed in what you’re teaching, then you have to build those relationships or it’s hard to get them focused on what you want them to do.”

Again, there is nothing, absolutely nothing “non-traditional” about building relationships with your students in order to educate them. My children’s teachers have been to their birthday parties:

They’ve been to church with their kids. They encourage their kids to follow their passions and celebrate their successes:

They volunteer their time, money, and sweat to support events like the Autism Walk:

Getting involved in children’s lives is, frankly, standard operating procedure for every teacher than my children have ever had. And anyone who tries to tell you this isn’t the case isn’t paying attention.

Or they’re trying to sell you something.

Leech goes on to praise a French teacher named Heidi Kershner who is using an innovative method of teaching French called “immersion.”

I’ve got to just stop here for a moment. To be honest, I had a terrible time with French, Spanish, and in college, German. My inabilities to learn and speak foreign languages was legendary. My peers regularly used me to encourage others after a test: “Well at least you didn’t do as bad as Russell.”

But come on. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, “innovative” about using “immersion” as a method for teaching foreign languages. This method has been used for as long as anyone has attempted to teach a foreign language to someone. The more immersed the person, the quicker the person adopts the language.

Truthfully, the only person who would believe that any of the examples offered in this article are “innovative” or “non-traditional” would be a person who doesn’t have any idea what education is. If these examples demonstrate anything at all, they are examples that demonstrate the inexperience of the people offering them up as “innovative.”

All this article proves is that TFAers don’t have enough experience to know that their innovative methods have been in practice for, at times, thousands of years.

Every single teacher I know of makes use of all of these methods and many, many more because teachers, particularly teacher with experience, know that how you reach a child differs with every single child.

And so, someone must be selling us something.

The one objectively true statement in this “traditional”-teachers-are-no-damn-good puff piece is this:

The teachers earn the same salary as a first-year teacher in Birmingham city schools, roughly $36,000 plus benefits. The district also pays a $5,000-per-teacher, per-year fee to Teach for America for recruitment, placement and training.

That’s right. A TFAer costs tax-payers $10,000 (TFAers stay for two years–the total is therefore $10,000 per TFAer) more than those boring, so-called “traditional” teachers.

There’s no specific evidence that TFAers out perform traditional teachers. At best, they are about the same–and yet they cost more.

There’s no specific evidence offered in Leech’s article that TFAers approaches to teaching are “unquestionably non traditional” as she claims.

There is evidence that TFAers cost more.

There is evidence that TFA of Alabama is attempting to sell us something. The Alabama Education Trust Fund budget for FY 2012 appropriated $611,100 for Teach for America.

There is evidence that TFA’s assets have increased by 623% over the past ten years to $337,962,466.

There is evidence that the Broad Foundation has 1.6 billion dollars in assets at the end of 2010.

Wouldn’t it be nice if million dollar corporations like TFA and billion dollar foundations like the Eli Broad Foundation would celebrate teachers who do exactly the same work, but don’t cost $10,000 more?

But then those teachers couldn’t be called “new and improved” could they. Those teachers don’t grow TFA’s coffers by 623%, do they?

No. Those traditional teachers just teach.

They give their lives, not just two years, to inspiring students to learn. They give their lives, not just two years, looking for ways to connect with their students. They give their lives, not just two years, looking for ways to immerse their students in their subject matter. They give their students their lives.

“New and Improved” is just another way of separating a fool from his money.

We need not be fooled by repackaged peanuts again.

It would be nice if the Birmingham News could stop giving TFA free advertisements. I hope the Huntsville Times will avoid doing so next year when Dr. Wardynski starts singing the praises of TFAers for doing the same things that teachers have been doing for thousands of years. He certainly won’t tell us if the TFAers are failing. I hope that the Times, unlike the Birmingham News, will.

The post New and Improved: TFA Is Neither appeared first on Geek Palaver.

There is an idea in this town that if it isn’t happening at my school, I don’t need to worry about it.

There are a lot of reasons for this. One might be that people are simply too busy to keep up with more than one school. As a parent who has children at two different elementary schools, I really understand this one. Even though the boy and the girl are a mere 19 months apart in age, they’re in separate schools and have been since they started thanks to the decision of the central office to move special needs kids out of their home schools and consolidate them in just a few schools in the system. One school has enough politics, programs, and problems of its own. There just isn’t time to worry about the other schools in the system.

Another reason is that life itself tends to intervene enough. Not only is one school enough, usually, one school is simply too much. There just aren’t enough hours in the day for everything that needs to get done. Work, kids activities, health question, car trouble, cleaning the house, church commitments and occasionally sleeping later than 6am, all take priority over the politics of the school system, especially when my kid’s school isn’t affected.

I’m hopeful that these are the primary reasons why when some bad decision doesn’t directly affect us, we find it easy and frankly justifiable to ignore what’s happening with other schools and other demographics.

If it doesn’t affect my kids, I simply don’t have time to worry about it.

I’m hopeful that’s it. I’m hopeful that it isn’t a deeper, more troubling reason like maybe “those” schools don’t deserve more resources, better buildings or good teachers. I’m hopeful that isn’t the case.

In our recent questions, comments and debates about Teach For America, I’ve occasionally sensed from people the attitude that since TFA isn’t coming to my kids’ schools, it’s not worth being concerned over.

Or as one commentator stated, “Those schools are failing. Anything is better than what they have now.” Beggars can’t be choosers, you know. So, why worry about TFAers?

The best answer is: Because it’s the right thing to do. If my children deserve teachers who are properly trained and committed to the goal of educating our children, then all children deserve similar teachers. If my children deserve teachers who are experienced, and who work everyday to apply that experience to the craft of education, then all children deserve such teachers.

A secondary answer, a more pragmatic answer is: If the district believes it’s okay to put inexperienced, untrained, uncertified “teachers” (who don’t want to be teachers) in one classroom, it can and will place them in every classroom.

But that won’t happen, right? The TFAers are going to schools that are failing, right? They, surely, won’t be placed in my child’s school.

Right?

The best answer that I can give you is that despite nearly a month of asking for details on where the TFAers will be placed, I still haven’t been able to get a straight answer.

No Straight Answers

Straight answers: Why are they so difficult to come by from Huntsville City Schools?

You should know that I am arguing from an absence of evidence in this case. Most of my posts are not based upon my opinions or assessments. I typically stick with exactly what a person says. Arguing from a lack of evidence is fraught with issues, but sometimes a lack of evidence is also telling. I believe that it is in this case as well.

I am convinced that Dr. Wardynski is planning to hire significantly more TFAers in August 2012 than the 30-40 he has previously indicated, and I believe that he is planning to place TFAers at schools all over the district.

Over the past month, I have been asking Dr. Robinson for details concerning the placement plan for the TFAers.

On February 9, 2012, I wrote Dr. Robinson to ask which schools would be receiving the TFA recruits in the district. On the 10th, Dr. Robinson responded:

A placement plan for TFA teachers will not be created until we know which teachers at which schools are retiring. That could be as late a June.

This is as close to a direct answer as I was able to receive, but as I told Dr. Robinson, this answer did not satisfy me. I wrote back to ask:

I am sure that someone in the central office has at least an idea where they are planning to place the TFA recruits starting in August, otherwise it would have been foolish to enter into a contract in November of 2011 to hire at least 30 TFAers [no later than] 14 days before the start of school. This is particularly true since we will have to pay $40 a day for those recruits that do not have positions on the first day of class.

Let me see if I can rephrase my question in such a way that you might be able to provide me with at least the beginnings of an answer.

Which of the schools in the district will not, regardless of retirements or non-renewal status, be receiving these TFA recruits? We can get to the actual numbers and placements later in the process. For now, I’ll be satisfied knowing where they won’t be placed.

Since she wasn’t willing to say how many and where those recruits would be placed, even though we’re going to have to pay at least 30 of them regardless of whether we have a job for them or not, I decided to ask where the TFAers will not be placed. Surely this should be a simple question to answer, right? After all, nearly every public discussion of the TFA contract has implied that these recruits are only placed at schools where the students are at high risk. In other words, TFA typically only serves schools where 70% or more of the school’s population are receiving free or reduced lunch.

Poverty and School Performance

Poverty, in other words, is one of the most accurate indicators we have for the potential success of a student. The lower the family income, the higher the risk for students to underperform in schools. If you want to get into the scientific evidence supporting this thesis, take a look at “Childhood Poverty, Chronic Stress, and Adult Working Memory” by Gary W. Evans and Michelle A. Schamberg. You may see an abstract here.

As I said, TFAers are typically placed at schools with 70% or more of the school’s population receives free or reduced lunch. The contract itself requires this.

Or, as we’ll see in a moment, it implies that this will be the standard.

In response to my follow up question, Dr. Robinson told me later in the day on February 10th:

I have asked the staff to provide the information you requested.

I expected that she would let me know that the TFAers will be placed at our Title I schools here in Huntsville. After all, the Title I schools are Title I schools because of the percentage of students they have receiving a free or reduced lunch. This is why Dr. Wardynski was pushing for students to complete the forms required for the Free or Reduced Lunch at the beginning of the school year. Here’s a listing of the Huntsville City Schools Title I schools as of August 15, 2011.

• Butler High
• Chapman Middle
• Davis Hills Middle
• Ed White Middle
• Highlands Elementary
• Lakewood Elementary
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary
• McDonnell Elementary
• Montview Elementary
• Morris Elementary
• Ridgecrest Elementary
• Rolling Hills Elementary
• University Place Elementary
• West Mastin Lake Elementary
• Westlawn Middle

The reason that I started asking about the placement of the TFAers was that there is only one high school on this list. As you’ll recall, Dr. Robinson stated that our TFAers will be primarily placed at secondary schools rather than elementary schools.

The problem is that there just aren’t that many secondary schools on the list.

I asked Dr. Robinson about this when I noticed that Dr. Wardynski was regularly talking about placing TFAers at elementary, middle and high schools. He said as much in his interview with Rocket City Mom on January 31st. When I asked Dr. Robinson about this on February 2nd, she told me that it had in fact “always been the plan” to place TFAers at both elementary and secondary schools.

Still No Answer

About two weeks later, I followed up with Dr. Robinson asking if the “staff” had responded to her request for a listing of schools where the TFAers will not be placed.

She responded on February 22nd:

Any determination about which schools will and will not receive TFA teachers will be made at a later date.

As I stated, the most informative response she gave me was the very first one, we won’t “know” until late June.

I wrote her back quoting the TFA contract which states on page two paragraph I.A.v.:

School District will restrict hiring of each such Teacher 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.

And so I asked:

The hesitancy on the part of the school district to inform the public which schools will or will not be receiving TFAers leads me to believe that the school district and Teach For America have arrived at a mutual agreement to allow TFAers to be placed at schools where less than 70% of the attending students are eligible for free or reduced lunch. Is this the case?

Has the district and TFA arrived at an agreement to place TFAers at schools where less that 70% of the student population receives a free or reduced lunch? If so, when will this agreement be made public?

What is the new cut-off percentage being employed, and what schools meet that new requirement? If not, why is it so difficult to provide me with a listing of schools that have a percentage of free and reduced lunch that is below 70%?

If they’ve not come up with a new standard by which they will decide where TFAers will be placed, why is it so difficult to give me a straight answer about where they will or won’t be placed?

I’m convinced that Dr. Wardynski and the Board are planning to place TFAers at schools with a standard significantly below 70% free and reduced lunch.

Dr. Robinson’s response did nothing to change my mind. On February 22nd, she wrote back:

We are still determining which schools qualify for TFA teachers.

Unless their standard of 70% free and reduced lunch has changed, why would they need to be “still determining which schools qualify?

Why is the district unable to communicate the criteria by which they will decide which schools will receive and which schools will not receive the TFA recruits?

Can You Think of a Reason?

The only reason I can think of is that the district is planning to use TFAers are significantly higher levels than the contract calls for (30 or more) and significantly higher than the number that Dr. Wardynski shared with Dr. Robinson via email when I asked about the cost of the contract (40).

Dr. Robinson’s hesitancy to provide me with a simple and direct answer combined with Dr. Wardynski regular claims that, “Many people who think they were going to be tenured will not,” leads me to one and only one conclusion: Dr. Wardynski is planning to hire significantly more TFAers than he has revealed publicly.

The contract is loaded with clues to this effect.

First, there is not an upper limit to the number of TFA recruits hired by our system (30 or more, 40 or more).

Second, the contract allows for both parties to change the placement rule of at least 70% or more free and reduced lunch by mutual consent. Since TFA Alabama would love to place record numbers of recruits in Huntsville, and since Dr. Wardynski is constantly raising the number and cheerleading for TFA, what, other than public opinion, is to stop both parties from raising the numbers?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

Sometimes we speak loudest, Dr. Robinson, by saying nothing at all. Right now, the district’s silence is screaming that they’re planning to hire far more than 30 or 40 TFAers. The district’s silence is screaming that they’re planning to place these recruits at all of the schools in the district.

So What’s A Parent To Do?

Ask Questions.

As you can see, my questions often go unanswered. If you think these are valid questions, ask them yourself. Perhaps you will receive a different answer than I have received.

When your child is assigned a classroom teacher for the fall, request that the school provide you with a completely and detailed accounting of that teacher’s training. You may do this by filing out a “Parent’s Right-To-Know” request. This form will advise you concerning your teacher’s and paraprofessional’s credentials.

If your children are being taught by a teacher teaching under a “provisional” or “emergency” status, if his or her undergraduate degree is in something other than Education, and he or she doesn’t have a master’s degree in Education, I would advise you to request that your child be transferred out of that teacher’s classroom.

All of our children deserve the best opportunity to succeed in their education. I, for one, do not want my children taught by a “teacher” who doesn’t want to be a teacher. TFA “teachers” don’t want to be teachers. We should make it easy for them to do something else.

The post Teach For America: Coming to Your Child’s School appeared first on Geek Palaver.

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.

The post Teachers Ordered To Learn From TFA appeared first on Geek Palaver.

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.

The post Entirely Unacceptable: Morale Matters appeared first on Geek Palaver.

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.

The post Wardynski Speaks: “We’re Moving With Purpose” appeared first on Geek Palaver.

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.

The post Teach For America’s Biggest Cheerleader Speaks appeared first on Geek Palaver.

On January 19, 2012, Dr. Wardynski recommended to the board, whom subsequently unanimously approved (no surprise there), yet another step towards his plan for total control of Huntsville City Schools.

From that date forward (technically this started with the hiring of the Pre-K teachers in December), Dr. Wardynski will decide which teachers will be hired, promoted, given tenure, and allowed to progress through the tenure process during their first and second years of teaching. You may view this proposal on the school board’s website.

Previously, the hiring of teachers rested primarily with the local schools and their principles. When a prospective teacher applied to work in Huntsville City Schools, they applied to work at a particular Huntsville City School. They were then interviewed by the principal who typically made the final decision of whom to hire.

Not so any longer.

As with most of the Superintendent’s decisions, he has again offered no clear evidence that this change was needed. I suppose since the board is approving somewhere in the neighborhood of 99% of his recommendations unanimously he doesn’t see the need. Whatever he wants, he gets.

Without question.

(Funny, this, combined with the overwhelming praise being heaped upon Dr. Wardynski by the board of education, sounds eerily familiar. Close to the same percentage of unanimous votes as well as perfect evaluations were given to Dr. Ann Roy Moore as late as 2009. She was fired in 2011. In other words, our esteemed board is quite good at repeating patterns.)

It seems that it would be easy to prove that centralized hiring of teachers in the system is a necessity. After all, conventional wisdom holds that schools on the South side regularly have more and perhaps better qualified candidates applying for positions than those on the North side of town. The constant refrain is, “Title I schools have a greater difficultly in hiring teachers than non-Title I schools.”

Again, this should be fairly simple to prove, if it is actually the case. But despite questions from the public concerning issues such as this, Dr. Wardynski sees no need to provide actual data supporting his claims. A simple phone call to his principals asking for statistics from their last round of hirings is evidently too much to ask.

I’m sorry, but wasn’t he sold to us as someone who bases his decisions upon data and not preconceived notions? We haven’t seen evidence of that in this decision, in the Teach for America decision, in the decision to merge six elementary and middle schools into three, nor even in his budgeting decisions.

It’s as if he’s simply following a script that was written for him by, oh I don’t know, The Broad Foundation. If Dr. Wardynski is indeed making “data-driven” decisions, why is he so hesitant to share that data with the public?

So, we have nothing but anecdotal evidence that there is actually a problem hiring for Title I schools in our district. We have no evidence that the hiring practices, tenure review, and non-tenure review procedures were failing to work. We have no evidence provided that any of the these procedures needed to change, and yet now they have been.

And this reorganization is going to cost the system an additional $141,000 in stipends for the 62 members serving on these committees.

Yes, we can pay a stipend to teachers to make Dr. Wardynski look good, but hiring an additional aide or creating a new classroom just simply costs too much.

Since there’s no presented evidence of need for this reorganization, why might Dr. Wardynski wish to centralize hiring of teachers?

Well, I can think of a few reasons.

• It increases his power and influence in the system.
• It decreases the influence of the principal to develop his or her school, and yet the responsibility of school’s performance still rests upon the principal’s shoulders. They now have the responsibility to perform with dramatically reduced ability to effect change in their schools.
• It reduces teachers to the level of pawns that Wardynski is free to move at will. If he likes a teacher, he can place that teacher in a classroom with predominately highly performing students. If he dislikes a teacher, he can place that teacher in a classroom with predominately lower performing students.
• It decreases the morale of our current principals and teachers further encouraging them to retire or seek employment elsewhere.
• It dramatically increases the cost of recruiting teachers to the system. One of the primary arguments that I and others have made against using Teach for America is that those “teachers” cost the system an additional $5,000 per teacher, per year to recruit. One way to try to negate that argument is by raising the cost of recruiting all new teachers. This is a step in that direction.

There are, as always, many unanswered questions about this new program. Here are just a few:

• How will teachers and administrators be chosen to serve on these committees?
• Will the TFAers hired as a result of the Teach for America contract also face these same committees, or will they be exempt from this process?
• If one of the main reasons for hiring TFA is to address the supposed problem of getting good applications for Title I schools, which Dr. Wardynski repeatedly claims, then haven’t we solved that problem now?
• How will the issues of having one’s peers review one’s work be balanced?
• How will this “super committee” effectively evaluate Special Education teachers who have an entirely different set of qualifications and standards that they are required to meet? (Yes, once again, SPED is an afterthought in our system.)

In short, centralizing the hiring of teachers directly benefits Dr. Wardynski and his goal of directly controlling every aspect of Huntsville City Schools. He receives all the praise if student performance increases. He receives none of the blame if they don’t because you officially cannot hold the superintendent or the board responsible as they have shown time and again.

As Lord Acton wrote in 1887, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

There appear to be no checks on Wardynski’s power at the present time.

__________

As a side note: I’ve received reports that Huntsville City Schools has now officially added Geek Palaver to their restricted list. In other words, if you’re connected to the internet via a HCS network, when you attempt to visit my site, you will not be able to do so. You will receive a warning that is similar to the warning that you would receive when attempting to access sites like Facebook or other “dangerous” sites.

When I first heard this, I really could not stop laughing. My first response was, “I wonder what took so long?” (By the way, HCS is completely within their legal rights to restrict the use of the HCS network in nearly anyway they wish. But it is disturbing when an educational system decides that some knowledge is just too dangerous or subversive to be allowed.)

However the more I thought about it, the more I felt it important to write this short note.

While I have not confirmed this at this time, if it is indeed true, then the software that is used to block sites is also likely logging the MAC Address (a specific and identifiable number for each computer), date, time, and login information used to access the site.

In other words, if you read this site on the HCS network, likely, Dr. Wardynski will receive notification that you have done so. This will likely happen even if you attempt to view the site during a break or planning period.

Yes, Big Brother is watching you.

And as I have laid out above, I am convinced that Dr. Wardynski is capable of developing a Nixonian Enemies List.

For the record, I do not believe that many teachers and HCS employees are reading these posts at work. My site stats that show when people hit the site show that the vast majority of hits come during non-school hours (early mornings before school are particularly busy.) Frankly, they are far too busy in overcrowded and understaffed classrooms to even take a bathroom break many days, they’re not going to take the time to read my posts. But in case someone did occasionally check the site, please know that Wardynski or others in his administration will likely know about it.

I hope for two things. First, that this is simply a rumor. Honestly, doesn’t the superintendent have more important things to do? And second, I hope that any Huntsville City Schools employee who reads this blog will do so away from work. Use your extremely limited time to take a restroom break. My posts aren’t going anywhere. Read them later. Our kids need your experience all the more now that the Superintendent is actively working to get rid of experienced teachers and administrators.

Seriously, is this what we’ve come to in Huntsville City Schools?

The post Taking Control: Centralized Hiring of Teachers appeared first on Geek Palaver.

No, old man, you have not hurt these people if they are of good conscience. But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time–we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world. Now, by God’s grace, the shining sun is up, and them that fear not light will surely praise it.

–The Crucible, Arthur Miller

In a press release yesterday referred to in the Huntsville Times, Dr. Wardynski announced that the “internal review” of the business practices the district conducted eight years ago has resulted in sending a report to the Alabama Department of Education and the Alabama Ethics Commission about one unnamed individual who might have directed some of the district purchases towards a family member’s local business. The story has since been updated under the following headline: “Huntsville City Schools tightening business ethic.”

This is an excellent practice by the superintendent. If there are those who are abusing their positions of trust, they should be held responsible.

But let’s take a closer look at this for a moment. As you know, I think that questions are the crucial component to helping us understand our world. As such, it’s important to raise questions about “events” such as this.

Why did Dr. Wardynski think it was important to issue a press release concerning this single “finding” from eight years ago? Why was it necessary to go public with this information that would typically be handled in private (particularly since “he’d rather not identify the employee”). What does Wardynski gain from this?

We’re told that one employee may have “purchased ‘parts’ for the district from a business owned by a family member.” What does Dr. Wardynski tell us in this press release? He tells us that he and Mr. Spinelli are watching out of how the system spent its money eight years ago. He tells us that he can be trusted with our “two most precious resources: [our] children and [our] tax dollars.” He tells us that those who abuse that trust will likely be fired. He tells us that he will in the coming weeks, “redesign the district’s purchasing and property accountability policies.”

What aren’t we being told here? The list is fairly long:

• The employee is not named.
• The family member’s company is not named.
• The value of the “parts” is not listed.
• The number of other “findings” is not revealed (but the implication is that there are numerous findings that directly resulted in the system going “bankrupt” last year).
• The reasons why the board commissioned but subsequently ignored a report from the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama (PARCA) are not discussed. (By the way, if you’re interested, you may read the PARCA report entitled, “Analysis of Non-Instructional Expenditures, Staffing, and Operating Practices in Huntsville City School System” by clicking on the link.)

So again, what does Dr. Wardynski gain from revealing that 8 years ago there may have been an employee of the system who purchased some parts from the company of a family member?

First, he gets good press. A week ago the Times asked “How has Huntsville’s new superintendent fared in his first six months?” The responses to this question were decidedly mixed on Al.com, and rather negative on the Time’s Facebook page. Immediately after that, the Times also ran a story showing that a “Third Huntsville school employee regains job after layoff appeal.” Having a new story that clearly shows that he’s “tightening business ethic” is a dramatic improvement in just a week’s time, don’t you think?

Second, he gets the opportunity to silence employees. He’s already shown that he’s willing to go after principals, coaches and teachers (not to mention his propensity to get rid of aides and therapists), but now he’s showing the entire system that if you’ve done something that could be considered questionable even in the previous decade, you will likely find yourself answering questions before the Ethics committee.

A frightened workforce is a pliable one.

Now, you may be thinking, as with the Deputy Governor Danforth from The Crucible that, “them that fear not the light will surely praise it,” but I ask you, if you have a boss who is willing to spend the time and resources of the third highest paid employee of the system reviewing decisions from the past decade, would you be willing to question him? He’s already shown himself unwilling to be held accountable by the public and parents; he certainly isn’t going to be held accountable by those who report to him.

Finally, (well for now anyway. I’m sure that there’s much more for Wardynski to gain from redirecting attention away from his decisions and back to those decisions made before he arrived in town.) he gets to draw the press’s and the public’s attention away from the hundreds of thousands he’s paying to his friends as he expands the central office’s payroll. He also get’s to draw their attention away from the millions that he’s funneling toward Broad Foundation interests.

Here’s a chart comparing the upper echelons of the district’s leadership from January 2011 to January 2012.

We are spending just shy of twice as much on the leadership of the central office as we were just a year ago.

One final question comes to mind as I consider Dr. Wardynski’s press release. If we are indeed entering a new era where were are doing our best to protect tax dollars, if we are indeed in need of a redesigned purchasing and property accountability policies, if we are indeed tightening our business ethic, will this new ethic include the no-bid contracts with PROACT Search, SUPES Academy, and Teach for America, (which together total $2,310,000 in contracts over the next five years) that the Superintendent recommended and the board approved? Will those types of purchasing of services also be placed under Wardynski’s newly found interest in making the system accountable? They seem to be far more concerned about “parts” from eight years ago and far less concerned about the whole that’s being spent right now. Will these contracts also be reviewed by the Alabama Board of Education and the Alabama Ethics Commission?

Somehow I doubt it.

A witch hunt is always useful and profitable for the hunter.

__________

I will be in attendance. As always, the meeting will be broadcast on ETV (Comcast 17, Knology 99), and at the Huntsville City Schools website. I will also be live-tweeting the meeting @russwinn. You can follow on Twitter or on the Geek Palaver Facebook Page.

The post Internal Reviews Only Review The Past appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Yesterday I argued that Dr. Wardynski was hoping to divide the city of Huntsville over the issue of Special Education funding. He seems to be hoping that he could silence me and others of his critics by showing that special education costs more than regular education.

As I have seen with the special education community, I am hopeful that the general community will not succumb to his appeal to fear of the unknown, uncertainty about the true nature of the disabled, and doubt that something like autism is an actual illness warranting additional expenditures. But fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) are powerful weapons in the hands of a politician skilled in handling them.

And Dr. Wardynski is skillful indeed.

He’s benefited from the FUD that Dr. Richardson created when he endorsed a laughably pathetic demographer’s report that recommended the closing of nine schools in the system. Now many of those schools are afraid to ask questions about future plans of the superintendent for fear that “the state will close us down.”

He’s benefited from the FUD that he created when he immediately moved to fire teachers and principals, move principals around, or simply close schools on his own.

He’s used FUD as cover to hide his true plans as when he removed the letters from Lee High School the day before the board meeting in which the board voted to spend at least $1.7 million dollars to hire teachers who aren’t qualified to teach.

And he’s used it to attempt to divide the community over the issue of special education funding.

So let’s handle the disclaimers right up front. Yes, my son is one of the 2,445 students in Huntsville City Schools with an IEP. Yes, these cuts directly impact the quality of the education my son is receiving, and so I have a vested interest in this issue. I benefit from your interest in this issue. It’s true.

But it’s also true that your child is hurt by the cuts to Special Education as well.

Here are a few reasons why you should care about Special Education funding:

All kids have special needs. No kid is truly non-exceptional. There are areas where some children excel and where other children lag. A good educational system makes every effort to meet the kids where they are and help them get to where they need to be. Wouldn’t it be a better system if Dr. Wardynski looked for ways to meet the needs of the children rather than for ways to divide the community? Wouldn’t your child benefit from a system that sought to meet his or her needs? If it becomes acceptable to refuse to meet the needs of exceptional kids, it will become acceptable to refuse to meet the needs of all kids.

If Wardynski can cut SPED funding by $7 million with all the protections afforded to SPED by federal law, no program is actually safe. What makes you think that he won’t cut funding that directly impacts your child next? Music, art, and laboratories all cost money that could quickly and far more easily be cut than SPED funding. If you believe having a friendly relationship with the man will help, if you think that having a PTA president who meets with him regularly makes a difference, you should reconsider. If the superintendent isn’t concerned about violating state code and federal law, there’s no reason to think that having a friendly relationship will matter to him.

It could happen to you. The third point is a harsh one. You should know that in so far as my wife and I are aware, we did nothing to cause the boy’s autism. The national autism rates are 1 in 110 children. Last year in Huntsville the rate was 1 in 60 and those are just the numbers in Huntsville City Schools. They don’t count the hundreds of SPED parents who have long since given up on the school system actually doing their job of educating all of our children. We have good to great insurance, but autism is not covered in the state of Alabama. For the first two years after the boy’s diagnosis, we spent, on average $23,000 a year on private therapies.

As amazing as the gift of life is, it is also amazingly fragile. All it takes for any one of us to require extensive support and additional services is a single slip, a wrong turn, or standing up too quickly. I hope and pray none of you have to experience something like that, but I am certain that many will. In fact, I find it hard to believe that most of you don’t already know someone with a special needs child. When this happens to you or someone you know, how will you cope? Will having an underfunded special education program make much sense to you then?

Special Education is the last best hope for correcting the pattern of teaching to the test. Many of you may believe that it’s pointless to try and educate a special needs child. You may believe that they cannot be educated. Frankly, I know this isn’t true because I’ve seen the vast leaps my boy has made. But I am convinced that this is what Dr. Wardynski believes. He believes that we are wasting money on educating special needs kids. This is why he submitted a budget that cut $7 million dollars from SPED in a single year.

This is what hiring someone with no educational experience buys you: a leader unconcerned with teaching anyone who needs a little extra help to learn.

Do you think your child might occasionally need a little extra help to learn? In the system that we’re rapidly becoming, you won’t receive that help from Wardynski’s schools. His focus is entirely on testing. It’s on testing because people who don’t understand education assume that passing the test is all that matters. Special Education is the last bastion of education where the process is designed to meet the needs of the child rather than to meet the needs of the test. You should care about this because if Wardynski has his way, our system will be reduced to doing nothing in a classroom that can’t be done by a test proctor. This is his goal.

But finally, if these reasons aren’t persuasive enough, you should care about the cuts to special education funding because it’s the right thing to do. Plain and simple, it’s the right thing to do.

I hope you’ll join me in asking about the special education cuts. I hope you’ll join me is holding the superintendent and the board accountable for the education of all our kids.

The post Why Should You Care About Special Education Funding? appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Dr. Wardynski has been superintendent of Huntsville City Schools since July 5, 2011, or a just shy of five months. It’s been a busy five months for him.

Here’s a quick summary of the changes Dr. Wardynski has brought about in that time.

1. Classroom Sizes have increased along with a higher student to teacher ratio.
2. The Central Office staff, in particular the upper level of the central office, has increased.
3. The Special Education budget has been cut by $7 million dollars to pay for significant increases in the recruitment, selection and professional development of Teach for America teachers and various other of the superintendent’s personal goals.
4. Senior Administrative positions are slated to receive bonuses and have already received raises while teachers salaries are frozen and new teachers salaries are set at the state minimum.
5. Eli Broad Foundation’s Return on Investment is up to $2,310,000.
6. The Superintendent who doesn’t want to close schools has now either closed, slated to close, relocated or merged nine schools without parental input, which is exactly the same amount of schools recommended for closure by the demographer’s report in June.
7. All job descriptions have been suspended allowing for personnel to be moved at will.

Funny, it would seem that he’s following the Broad Foundation’s game plan to the letter. In, “How to tell if your School District is Infected by the Broad Virus,” SueP of Seattleducation2011 suggests looking at a few of the following clues:

1. Schools in your district are suddenly closed.
2. Even top-performing schools, alternative and schools for the gifted, are inexplicably and suddenly targeted for closures or mergers.
3. Repetition of the phrases “the achievement gap” and “closing the achievement gap” in district documents and public statements.
4. Repeated use of the terms “excellence” and “best-practices” and “data-driven decisions.” (Coupled with a noted absence of any of the above.)
5. Power is centralized.
6. Decision-making is top down.
7. Local autonomy of schools is taken away.
8. Principals are treated like pawns by the superintendent, relocated, rewarded and punished at will.
9. Culture of fear of reprisal develops in which teachers, principals, staff, even parents feel afraid to speak up against the policies of the district or the superintendent.
10. Ballooning of the central office at the same time superintendent makes painful cuts to schools and classrooms.
11. Sudden increase in the number of paid outside consultants.
12. Superintendent attempts to sidestep labor laws and union contracts.
13. Teachers are no longer referred to as people, educators, colleagues, staff or even “human resources,” but as “human capital.”
14. The district leadership declares that the single most significant problem in the district is suddenly: teachers!
15. Superintendent lays off teachers for questionable reasons.
16. Teach for America, Inc., novices are suddenly brought into the district, despite no shortage of fully qualified teachers.
17. The district hires a number of “Broad Residents” at about $90,000 apiece, also trained by the Broad Foundation, who are placed in strategically important positions like overseeing the test that is used to evaluate teachers or school report cards. They in turn provide — or fabricate — data that support the superintendent’s ed reform agenda (factual accuracy not required).
18. Superintendent behaves as if s/he is beyond reproach.
19. The superintendent receives the highest salary ever paid to a superintendent in your town’s history (plus benefits and car allowance) – possibly more than your mayor or governor — and the community is told “that is the national, competitive rate for a city of this size.”
20. Your school board starts to show signs of Stockholm Syndrome. They vote in lockstep with the superintendent. Apparently lobotomized by periodic “school board retreat/Broad training” sessions headed by someone from Broad, your school board stops listening to parents and starts to treat them as the enemy. (If you still have a school board, that is — Broad ideally prefers no pesky democratically elected representatives to get in the way of their superintendents and agendas.)

There’s more, but I think this is sufficient to communicate the point. If you’d like to read the entire list, you may do so at http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/how-to-tell-if-your-school-district-is-infected-by-the-broad-virus/

As I said, Dr. Wardynski has been busy in the past five months. Kinda makes you wonder exactly what’s in store in the future. If this is the type of “future leaders” that Broad Foundation supported programs like Teach for America produces, I would much prefer that they go on about their chosen careers and leave education to those who have committed their lives to it.

The post What Changes Wardynski Hath Wrought appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Last night during the Huntsville School Board meeting, Dr. Philip Kovacs, a concerned parent, asked Dr. Wardynski and the board a few specific and direct questions concerning the Teach For America four-year contract that the board approved at the beginning of the month.

He, of course, received no answers.

The only response offered was Dr. Wardynski on WAFF last night mocking “teacher colleges” and claiming, again without offering any evidence, that TFA’ers are far superior to traditionally trained teachers.

Perhaps someone should have mentioned to the new superintendent that this is a research based town. We don’t just follow orders that have no basis in reality. Asking questions and seeking answers is the crucial component to education. It’s a shame that wasn’t covered in his weekend training course.

It was, evidently, covered in Dr. Kovacs’ training, for his questions struck at the heart of the matter with a clarity that Dr. Wardynski’s unsupported claims of a “proven track record” cannot hope to match.

How about sharing evidence of this “track record,” Dr. Wardynski? Then, perhaps your mocking, dismissive tone towards people who have committed their entire lives to the calling of education will have some validity.

Again, I suppose 16 total months of educational experience didn’t prepare you for doing anything other than giving orders.

Shame.

Dr. Kovacs is committed to seeking the truth. His use of the Socratic method of asking questions is evidence of this, and I for one greatly appreciate his willingness to question those in power.

His questions deserve an answer. If you agree, please copy them down and ask them yourself. The more people we have asking, the more difficult it will be for our system’s administration to insult our teachers with their unfounded belief that anyone can teach and lead an educational system.

Dr. Wardynski’s irritation at being asked questions is evidence that he is not an educator. Experience, sir, actually does make a difference.

Let’s continue to irritate him by asking questions like these.

1. You’ve claimed there is “overwhelmingly positive research” in support of Teach for America. This is demonstrably false. Why are you making this claim when there are only two, non-peer reviewed reports on TFA, both of which have been discredited by scholars?

Furthermore, given that TFA has been around for over 21 years, if they were so successful, shouldn’t there be dozens of peer-reviewed studies showing that success?

As there is no peer reviewed research on the program, this is in fact an experiment, as such, will you give notice to parents whose children will take place in your experiment, as is required by law?

If your answer is “no,” are you in fact demanding that all families participate in your experiment, or will parents be allowed to place their children in classrooms with professional teachers?

2. Will you guarantee that TFA members will be equitably distributed across the district and not only placed in Title I schools, which would be in direct violation of the ongoing federal desegregation order re: Hereford v. Huntsville?

Furthermore, will you provide the media with the percentage of black teachers laid off and the percentage of white “new faces” replacing them, or will the media need to use the Freedom of Information Act to determine those figures?

3. I am aware of several alternative programs that have better retention rates than TFA. Did you solicit competing bids from these other organizations? If so, where are those bids, if not, why not?

4. Dr. Robinson claims the $5,000 per year is for professional development, but TFA claims the money must be used towards paying off college loans. Who is incorrect on this point? Are my tax dollars going to professional development, or am I paying off other people’s debt because quite frankly, I have plenty of my own.

5. If, in two years, your 1.9 million dollar experiment on Huntsville’s children has not produced “overwhelmingly positive results,” will you hold yourselves accountable and resign?

For the record, what is your metric for determining “overwhelmingly positive results?”

6. Will you provide members of the media with the exact amount of money you have given to the Broad Foundation since Dr. Wardynski was hired, or will you make them use the Freedom of Information Act to determine to that figure?

7. Will you agree to stop outsourcing public education and to immediately end outside-of-district spending until the media has had time to determine, exactly, how much of our tax dollars you have given away?

Thank you, Dr. Kovacs, for your commitment to education. We stand with you in asking these questions.

The post Experience Matters appeared first on Geek Palaver.

Just shy of two months ago, I posted my findings concerning the reductions in the Huntsville City Schools budget for Special Education. Using numbers provided to me by Mr. Frank Spinelli, CSFO, and Mr. Rob Terry, I found that the Special Education budget for FY2011 was $27,588,027.27. This budget for FY2012 has been reduced to $20,414,163.53, or a difference of $7,173,863.74.

For nearly the past three months I have been asking for a justification of this reduction in funding for our neediest kids. Perhaps tonight Mr. Aaron King will finally provide that justification.

When I asked Dr. Robinson about this reduction at the September 29th board meeting, she offered a couple of justifications:

• The seven million dollar reduction represents the “difference between budgeted numbers and actual expenses.” As I pointed out on October 2nd, even if she is correct, the difference between what was actually spent and a planned budget is still $7 million dollars, which is 61 percent of the total cuts made system wide.
• She also made her claim that she knows that the system is meeting IEPs because the system is not being sued.

Hopefully, Mr. King will come up with something a little better than that tonight. (By the way, why is it that Mr. King is making this presentation? Why isn’t this presentation being made by Mr. Spinelli as CSFO, or Dr. Cooper as Deputy Superintendent for Instruction since she is directly responsible for Special Education, or perhaps even Dr. Wardynski himself? I suspect this is because they want to communicate to the board that there’s little to no need to ask questions about his presentation.

I also doubt that he will be willing to offer any justification for why Special Education is being asked to carry more of the cuts than any other group in the system despite state code section 16-39-3 requiring that the cuts made to special education be prorated “on a per capita basis between exceptional and nonexceptional children.” Perhaps Mr. Brooks will be willing to offer an interpretation of this code that justifies placing 61 percent of the cuts on special education.

Despite Dr. Robinson’s claims to the contrary, the school system is not meeting the requirements of the IEPs. At Challenger Elementary alone, the entire school went for two months without a single Occupational Therapy session when the previous OT resigned after about a month of school. The OT that was hired to replace the first one resigned after just a single day. Additionally, the entire school has been without a Speech Therapist for the past two weeks when our superb ST resigned because she was being overworked and underpaid.

When I asked where the extra $1.9 million dollars was coming from to pay for the recruitment, selection and professional development of the TFA’ers, honestly, I think I already know. It came out of the $7 million that was cut from the Special Education budget from FY2011 to FY2012.

It will be interesting to see how Mr. King justifies this.

The post Special Education Presentation at the Board Meeting Tonight appeared first on Geek Palaver.

A quick follow up to my post from last Saturday, November 5th, Teach For America Costs Twice the Reported Amount: It would seem that I was correct that the cost of TFA was at least twice as much as had been reported. The Huntsville Times reported Sunday that the actual cost of the contract will be “at least twice as much as initially indicated.”

Bonvillian reports, “That brings the estimated price tag for the contract up to $1.7 million over the next several years.”

But now it seems that this number is increasing again. During the Bama game Saturday night, Dr. Robinson forwarded an email to me from Dr. Wardynski. It seems that Dr. Robinson was asking Dr. Wardynski about the total costs of the TFA contract. Dr. Wardynski wrote her back to say that the contract would cost $1.9 million rather than $1.7 million as we had reported.

In other words, the total number of TFA’ers Huntsville City Schools is planning to hire has increased again. During the initial presentation on October 11th, Mr. Carpenter, Alabama TFA Executive Director, claimed that the contract would call for the hiring of the following numbers:

• 2012-2013: 30 TFA’ers
• 2013-2014: 30 TFA’ers
• 2014-2015: 50 TFA’ers

This contract would require $5,000 per teacher, per year. These TFA’ers would be hired by the district under alternative certification. So, when presented to the board, this contract would cost $1.1 million dollars for a total of 110 teachers over three years.

When the contract was published it had changed dramatically and then called for the following hiring pattern:

• 2012-2013: 30 or more
• 2013-2014: 40 or more
• 2014-2015: 50 or more
• 2015-2016: 50 or more

Following this pattern we will hire 170 total TFA’ers at a cost of $1.7 million for four years. You may find this information in the contract under Appendix A on page 16. It seems that the “or more” part of the contract has now been figured out.

On Saturday, Dr. Robinson shared with me that Dr. Wardynski had told her that the actual numbers will be as follows:

• 2012-2013: 40
• 2013-2014: 50
• 2014-2015: 50
• 2015-2016: 50

As you can see, we have now nearly doubled from the initial presentation the total contract as we’re now planning to hire 190 TFA’ers over the next four years. (Dr. Wardynski’s email actually had two different totals. The total expense was listed at $1.9 million, and his breakdown of the amount was as described above, but when he totaled the numbers he totaled them as 180. I have asked Dr. Robinson to clarify this discrepancy, but she has not responded.)

190 TFA’ers at a rate of $5,000 per teacher, per year for two years is $1,900,000 for the duration of the contract.

This deal is getting worse all the time.

The board will be meeting tomorrow night at 5:30pm at the Merts building, 200 White Street. I will be in attendance. As always, the meeting will be broadcast on ETV (Comcast 17, Knology 99), and at the Huntsville City Schools’ website. I will also be live-tweeting the meeting @russwinn. You can follow on Twitter or on the Geek Palaver Facebook Page.

Also Welcome to all my new readers! If you’d like to stay connected, please sign up for the email distribution list on the upper right hand side of the screen in the field next to the Subscribe button. Again, welcome and thanks for reading. We can make a difference.

The post Teach For America Contract Costs Increasing Again appeared first on Geek Palaver.

At the last board meeting on Thursday, November 3rd, Dr. Robinson defended her support of the superintendent’s recommendation to sign what was at the time a $1.7 million dollar contract with Teach for America by claiming that she had spent the week reviewing studies on TFA and the effectiveness of the teachers placed in a system by TFA.

She claimed that there were both “good” and “poor” studies concerning the effectiveness of the teachers that TFA hires. In short, she was convinced that TFA’ers were more effective than traditionally certified teachers. In an email from Dr. Wardynski that Dr. Robinson shared with me, he claimed, “We are making this investment because evidence has shown that the achievement gains provided by TFA exceed the gains afforded by a similar investment in alternative strategies” (November 9, 2011).

Thus, the extra $10,000 spent training a TFA’er will be money well spent because TFA’ers will provide a “very large gain in school culture and student achievement” (November 9, 2011).

He offers no explanation of how the gains in “school culture” are to be evaluated, but the “student achievement” standard is fairly clear.

To evaluate that, we’ll need to look at the studies available to us.

“Good” and “Poor” Studies

Assuming that the Heilig and Jez study that I shared with her on November 1, 2011, was one of the “poor” studies, I approached Dr. Robinson after the meeting to ask for her thoughts about this study.

In summary, while she didn’t call Heilig and Jez’s study “poor,” she did claim that this study did not take into account significant changes that TFA made to their training program in 2009. As the study was published in June of 2010, she is correct that it does not take into consideration data after 2009. She did not offer an explanation of why TFA needed to make significant changes to their training program in 2009, nor did she offer any details concerning what changes were made to their training program in 2009.

She also claimed that the Heilig and Jez study was “supported” by NEA. On this “criticism” she is correct. The National Education Association is a supporter of the National Educational Policy Center. They are also funded by private donations to the University of Colorado Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

While it is important to know that the NEA has provided some funding for the NEPC, that does not mean that the NEA influenced the Heilig and Jez study to produce a negative report on TFA any more than The Ford Foundation influenced them to produce a positive one. (The Ford Foundation has made countless donations to Teach For America.)

Finally she claimed that the TFAers hired under this contract would be placed at secondary schools rather than at elementary schools. As such, she claimed that what we really needed to consider were TFAs performance at the secondary level.

When I asked for copies of the “good” studies that proved that TFA was putting teachers into schools who were just as effective as traditionally trained and certified teachers, she offered me two studies. In her defense, Dr. Robinson, unlike Dr. Wardynski, did proffer the links to the studies that she considered to be “good.”

Dr. Wardynski merely claims that there is “evidence [that] has shown” TFA’s achievement. For this, I thank Dr. Robinson.

“The Effect of Teach for American on Students: Findings from a National Evaluation”

The first was a 2004 study sponsored by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. entitled, “The Effect of Teach for America on Students: Findings from a National Evaluation” by Decker, Mayer, and Glazerman. This study offered an evaluation of TFA for teachers teaching at the elementary level.

Dr. Robinson did not offer a reason why this study evaluating elementary schools in 2004 was a “good” study while the Heilig and Jez study of elementary schools in 2010 was not.

The Decker, Mayer, and Glazerman study claims that TFA’ers “produce higher student test scores than the other teachers in their schools” (16). Figure 2 (xiv) supports this claim concerning Math scores, but it does not support this claim concerning Reading scores.

In short, while TFA’ers out performed the control teachers by “10 percent of a grade equivalent” (xiv) in Math, the effect on the reading scores was negligible. In other words, the math students were almost one month ahead of their peers with control teachers.

But who exactly were these control teachers with whom the TFA’ers were competing in this “good” study? They are described as including, “traditionally certified, alternatively certified, and uncertified teachers” (xii).

So, Dr. Robinson’s first “good” study proving that TFA’ers are better teachers than traditionally certified teachers compares TFA’ers to both “alternatively certified” and even “uncertified teachers.”

So some of the best evidence available showing that TFA’ers are better show only that they are marginally better (in math) than uncertified teachers.

As Hibpshman’s State Board review of the Decker, Mayer, and Glazerman report states, “it is conceivable that the effect size [TFA's superior performance] would altogether disappear or be reversed if they were compared to better teachers” (5).

In February and April of 2011, the Huntsville City School board of education’s reduction in force plan laid off 154 certified teachers. When Mrs. Morrison asked Mrs. Belinda Williams, HR Director, for evidence that these 154 teachers were being re-hired, Mrs. Williams replied during the November 3rd meeting that she did not have data to support that claim at that time.

“Making a Difference?: The Effects of Teach for America in High School”

The second “good” study that Dr. Robinson shared with me was by Xu, Hannaway and Taylor of the CALDER Urban Institute entitled, “Making a Difference?: The Effects of Teach for America in High School.”

This “Working Paper” from April of 2007 argues that, “The findings show that TFA teachers are more effective, as measured by student exam performance, than traditional teachers” (3). This is referred to as a “working paper” by CALDER because it has not been peer-reviewed unlike the “poor” Heilig and Jez study that I had shared with her on November 1st. CALDER themselves state that “CALDER Working Papers have not gone through final formal review and should be cited as working papers. They are intended to encourage discussion and suggestions for revision before final publication.”

While discussion is a hallmark of the educational process, it’s troubling when nearly $2 million dollar decisions, when decisions that will effect at least a third of a child’s primary and secondary education are being based on studies that have not even been reviewed.

In addition, one of the report’s primary authors, Jane Hannaway, discloses on the title page of the report that her “daughter is employed by Teach for America” (1). She does not report in what capacity her daughter is employed. Also, she does not reveal that she is “engaged in a major conceptual effort for the Gates Foundation on the design of human resource management strategies in education.”

The Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation have extensive ties dating back for at least a decade. Both foundations actively support Teach for America.

Despite the lack of peer review, I was able to find one independent assessment of this study by the Department of Education who provide CALDER with their primary funding. The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) offer the following assessment of this study:

What did the study authors report? TFA improved student performance on standardized end-of-course tests in math and science–by about one-tenth of a standard deviation. This is equivalent to moving a student from the 50th to the 54th percentile. (1)

So again we find that the best evidence supporting spending an additional $5,000 per teacher, per year is that it increases student performance in math and science (but not in the humanities subjects) by one-tenth of a standard deviation. The best that can be said is that math students are about a month ahead of their peers.

IES went on to offer the following assessment of the “Making a Difference?” report:

Students may be placed in a course taught by a TFA teacher because of their ability in that subject – and not solely because of their general math and science ability. If so, differences in performance in TFA and non-TFA classes may be influenced by differences in student ability in specific subjects. As a result, the study may not accurately measure the effect of having a TFA teacher. In addition, the data did not link students directly to the teacher who taught their course. Instead,  the study matches students to teachers based on test proctor and classroom demographics. This method is  somewhat imprecise, and matching errors could lead to misleading results. (1)

So again, the best studies that those who support hiring TFA’ers at, at least, a $1.7 million dollar premium can offer are studies that “may not accurately measure the effect of having a TFA teacher.”

This is what passes for evidence with the school board. But, in their defense, this is more evidence than they usually require before they rubber stamp the superintendent’s recommendations.

Dr. Wardynski often claims that our children only get one shot at their education. If he really believes this, why is he so willing to take a $1.7 million dollar chance on unqualified teachers? At best, TFA represents a huge investment for minimal gains in math. At worst, it represents a huge investment for significant losses in student achievement.

It represents a corporate experiment where TFA’ers learn to teach on other people’s kids.

We should cancel this contract immediately.

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Once again, I underestimated Dr. Wardynski’s brazen commitment to giving public funds back to The Broad Foundation.

On Thursday night, the Superintendent recommended that the board approve the contract with Teach for America. The board, in turn, approved this recommendation. Dr. Robinson, Mr. Blair, and Mr. Birney all voted in favor of the recommendation to hire Teach for America teachers. Mrs. Morrison voted against the recommendation. Although the Board President does not typically vote unless there is a tie, I believe that Mrs. McCaulley also said, “Nay” (although she said this somewhat under her breath).

So what exactly did the board vote to approve on Thursday night? The details of the contract have changed dramatically since the original Teach for America presentation on October 11th. That night, Mr. J. W. Carpenter of TFA presented a plan for the system to hire 110 TFA teachers over a period of three years. I reported, as did the Huntsville Times, that this contract would cost Huntsville City Schools $550,000 for three years, or $5,000 per TFAer.

The Plan Changes

Carpenter said in his presentation that in 2012-2013, the system would hire 30 TFAs, 40 in 2013-2014, and 50 in 2014-2015. I reported that the total cost of hiring these teachers was going to be $5,000 per teacher. The Huntsville Times has also reported this. We were mistaken on two counts.

For some reason, when the contract was presented to the board on November 3rd for the board approval, the superintendent didn’t recommend hiring TFA for just three years, but rather four. The hiring plan presented in the contract was as follows:

• In 2012-2013, TFA will hire “30 or more” TFA teachers.
• In 2013-2014, TFA will hire “40 or more” TFA teachers.
• In 2014-2015, TFA will hire “50 or more” TFA teachers.
• In 2015-2016, TFA will hire “50 or more” TFA teachers.

No one, not Dr. Wardynski nor any of the board members, bothered to mention that the contract had been altered from three years to four. So while I reported on October 18th that we were hiring 110 TFA teachers, we are in fact hiring 170 TFA teachers.

I asked Dr. Robinson for a reason for the change from a three to a four year contract, and I was told, “The contract was expanded to another year because we need the services for an additional year.”

Dr. Robinson offered no justification for why she believed that the services were needed for even a single year, much less four. There has also been no discussion or justification for the “or more” modification either. It would seem that what our board actually approved on Thursday was to hire a minimum of 170 TFAers for the next four years. I wonder if we’ll ever actually hear an actual total number after the preliminary hiring is completed before the 2012-2013 school year begins? Somehow, I doubt they’ll volunteer the information.

The Big Mistake

So that was one mistake that I made in underestimating Dr. Wardynski’s commitment to Broad Foundation funded programs. The second is actually much larger.

You see, the contract doesn’t actually say that Huntsville City Schools will pay TFA $5,000 per teacher. What the contract actually says is on page 9 is:

With respect to each Teacher whose employment by School District is to commence in the 2012-2013 academic year, School District shall pay Teach For America an annual amount of $5,000.00 for each year in which such Teacher is employed by School District, up to two years from the date such employment is to commence

In other words, we’re not paying Teach for America $5,000 per TFAer. We’re actually paying them them $5,000 per TFAer per year for up to two years.

The cost of this contract just doubled without anyone noticing. The cost of this contract just doubled without anyone on the board or in the central office drawing attention to this.

The Huntsville Times first reported the total cost on October 18th, as being $5,000 per TFAer for–at that time–a total of $550,000 for 110 teachers. They again reported the total cost on November 3rd as being 5,000 per TFAer for a total of $850,000 for 170 teachers.

The actual cost of the Teach for America contract is $1,700,000 for four years, not $850,000 for four years.

And no one in the Superintendent’s office, nor on the board has done anything to correct this misconception in 19 days. Perhaps they didn’t notice it themselves?

Or perhaps they were glad that the total cost was being underestimated by the press and by me.

Dr. Wardynski, Mr. King, Dr. Robinson, Mr. Blair, Mr. Birney, I have just one question for you: If you believe that hiring TFAers is the best possible action for the system to follow to improve student achievement, why are you hiding behind a misconception concerning the costs of the program?

For those keeping track of such things: Dr. Wardynski has now offered The Broad Foundation a $2,110,000 return on the investment made in Dr. Wardynski’s training in five months. No wonder the Foundation is doing so well.

The post Teach For America Costs Twice the Reported Amount appeared first on Geek Palaver.

[UPDATED]

Thanks to several good researchers (and friends!), I have been reviewing an independent evaluation of the efficacy of the Teach for America teachers that the board heard a recommendation for on October 11th. My initial assessment of the presentation, unlike that of the board, was that paying Teach for America $550,000 to hire 110 uncertified teachers (especially when the system just finished laying off 154 teachers in the spring), was not worth the money.

Yet because we’re living in a time when teachers are insulted, mocked, and dismissed as incapable of doing anything at all other than “stealing money from the public,” it’s important to evaluate the performance of the Teach for America teachers as well. (Yes, there are actually people who believe that paying teachers $36,144 a year to educate our children is too much. Paying a teacher one dollar an hour, per child is too much. But I digress.) As such, a more extensive evaluation of how Teach for America teachers perform compared with certified teachers is an important comparison.

Luckily, the Education Policy Research Unit of Arizona State and the Education and the Public Interest Center of the University of Colorado at Boulder (Wardynski’s old stomping grounds–well, for about eleven months anyway) have done the actual research that I, frankly, don’t have time to do.

Education and research provides countless benefits to a community, doesn’t it?

Mr. Carpenter, Executive Director of Teach for America, Alabama, offered his opinion to the board on the 11th claiming that Teach for America attracts “new leaders for low income kids.” According to his website, he claims:

we are bringing in talented leaders, forming a critical mass of dedicated, committed people who will fight at every level – as teachers, as school leaders, in politics and in leadership roles all over Alabama – for equal opportunity in education.

His assessment is that the teachers that Teach for America brings to a system are of a higher quality than the teachers that our local and regional colleges and universities can provide.

This assessment of the quality of Teach for America teachers went unquestioned by the board. As the Huntsville Times reported, Mr. Blair said, “I guess one of the things Teach for America really buys us, (is that) they’ve done all of the recruiting beforehand, which saves us time and money.”

So, since the board didn’t see fit to ask if teachers that Teach for America would provide were actually as effective as a traditionally trained teacher (you know, those silly people who decided while they were in college to dedicate their lives and careers to educating our kids as opposed to being a banker or lawyer), I thought it might be a good idea to review the work of those who did ask such questions. Thankfully, Julian Vasquez Heilig of the University of Texas at Austin and Dr. Su Jin Jez of the California State University asked these questions in June 2010.

I highly encourage you to download and read their findings for yourself. You may download the study from the National Education Policy Center’s website.

The covers three main questions:

• Do TFA teachers perform as well as non-certified or emergency hired teachers?
• Do TFA teachers perform as well as certified or traditionally trained teachers?
• Does experience make a difference in the performance of TFA teachers?

Again, I encourage you to download and read their study for yourself, but here’s a quick summary of their peer-reviewed findings.

Do TFA teachers perform as well as non-certified or emergency hired teachers?

Yes. Typically TFA teachers perform on about the same level as a non-certified or emergency hired teachers. They raised reading scores and mathematics scores at equivalent levels as non-certified teachers.

As both groups have at least college degrees, this is to be expected. But since TFA teachers aren’t only replacing non-certified teachers, but are replacing certified teachers as well, a comparison between those groups would be useful.

Do TFA teachers perform as well as certified or traditionally trained teachers?

No. Typically, TFA teachers do not perform on the same level as a certified teacher with equivalent experience. Heilig and Jez found that, “studies indicate that the students of novice TFA teachers perform significantly less well in reading and mathematics than those of credentialed beginning teachers.”

Does experience make a difference in the performance of TFA teachers?

Yes. Experience, and completion of the certification process (which typically takes two-years), causes students of TFA teachers and traditionally trained teachers to perform on an equivalent level. Their scores in reading are equivalent to traditional teachers in reading, and at times better in mathematics.

So experience for both groups makes a difference in their performance. Students of experienced teachers perform better than students of non-experienced teachers. The issue then becomes how do we keep our teachers past the first two years of employment?

This is a major issue for TFA teachers who make only a two-year commitment to teaching before they return to their field of choice. More than 50% of TFA teachers leave teaching after the two year commitment is completed. After three years, that number jumps to 80% or more.

In other words, TFA teachers don’t see teaching as a career, and the overwhelming majority of their teachers leave after three years (or right about the time the deficiencies in their training have been overcome by experience).

Thus, TFA has developed a system of funneling teachers into systems that works extremely well for TFA. After all, if we hire 30 TFA teachers next year, by the time the proposed TFA contract of three years, 110 teachers and $550,000 dollars has come to an end, 80% of those teachers will then need to be replaced.

Which will initiate a renewal or likely expansion of the TFA contract for an additional three years, or longer.

Students of TFA teachers do not perform as well as students of traditionally trained teachers. TFA teachers cost more to recruit and train than traditionally trained teachers. TFA teachers overwhelmingly leave the teaching field before these deficiencies are negated by experience.

So, why are we thinking of hiring 110 new TFA teachers over the next three years when we just this spring laid off 154 certified teachers with at least a year of experience?

It’s as inconceivable as most of the superintendent’s recommendations and board decisions of late. Hopefully the board will ask these questions before they approve this contract with TFA, but if history is any indication, they won’t.

Once again, those who are in need of the highest qualified teachers get the least qualified.

__________

Although they still haven’t posted an agenda for tomorrow night’s meeting on the website, the School Board should be meeting tomorrow evening at 5:30pm at the Merts Building, 200 White Street, North. So the agenda has now been posted. The board will be asked to vote on the Teach for America contract tomorrow night. I have shared this study with the board; it will be interesting to see if anyone raises questions based on it. With the decision to rename the new Lee High School something else, and to relieve the current Lee High School principal of his duties as principal once the school is occupied next year, I expect the meeting will be crowded. I will be in attendance. As always, the meeting will be broadcast on ETV (Comcast 17, Knology 99), and at the Huntsville City Schools website. I will also be live-tweeting the meeting @russwinn. You can follow on Twitter or on the Geek Palaver Facebook Page.

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This morning Crystal Bonvillian ran an interesting article about the Huntsville City School board’s plans to hire up to 110 new Teach for American, Inc. teachers over the next three years. These hirings will cost the system $550,000 or $5,000 for each new teacher. Yet this money represents one-quarter of the total cost associated with recruiting, selection and professional development of a Teach for America teacher. The actual cost for all 110 of these teachers will be closer to $2,200,000 over three years.

Mr. J. W. Carpenter of TFA claims that 75% of that cost will be covered “through donations from the private sector.”

Let’s think about this for a moment.

The Huntsville City School System is projecting approximately a four million dollar deficit in its general fund operating budget at the end of the 2012 fiscal year. In order to address that deficit, the board has voted to reduce new teachers’ salaries to the state minimum. Additionally, the board has voted to freeze all STEP raises for all teachers/employees. And yet this same board is considering a proposal to spend $550,000 dollars over the next three years with a private company just to hire 110 new teachers? And this money is on top of the amount that these 110 teachers will be paid by the system?

So, a broke system believes that hiring people to teach who are not trained as teachers is a good idea.

Consider:

• TFA teachers receive the same salary and the same benefits that a non-TFA teacher receives.
• Additionally, TFA teachers also receive $5,350 per year for two years from AmeriCorps to pay off student loans.
• TFA teachers can postpone the repayment of their student loans for the two years they are in the program, and AmeriCorps will repay the interest that is accrued during their service period.
• TFA also pays for transitional expenses during the summer after they graduate.

I thought that the private sector was supposed to be all about the bottom line? Wasn’t Dr. Wardynski sold to the system as a person who could bring financial stability to a floundering system? So how does it make sense to spend $550,000 to hire teachers–who aren’t trained to teach–when we could not spend $550,000 and hire teachers who are trained to teach?

Regardless of the stupid jokes that get passed around, people who can also teach others to do so as well. (In fact, no one truly understands a topic until they try to teach it to someone else.) Yet, according to Mr. Carpenter’s own numbers, 90% of the Teach for America “teachers” weren’t interested enough in eduction to pursue a degree in education. (According to their website, that number is closer to 94%.) They decided that a degree in some other field, that a career in some other field, made more sense and then changed their minds.

You know, I complete understand that. I, too, entered education from another field. Teaching is, without question, the greatest career on the planet. Being able to work with students and watch them struggle with concepts they’ve never considered before until they grasp them is, simply, the coolest thing ever.

So I understand why a recent graduate would consider teaching to be an amazing gift.

But Teach for America, Inc. adds additional overhead to a process that is working without adding any additional benefit. And that makes no sense.

Here’s a simple question: if we can and are filling our teaching positions without spending an extra $5,000 per teacher on recruitment, selection and training, then why are we even considering spending the extra money while we’re still in debt?

Could it be that the reason we’re doing so is because our superintendent and our school board do not respect educators? Perhaps this is why Dr. Wardynski seeks to blame teachers at every turn as he did last Tuesday when he said, “Educators can play games” with AYP scores and evaluations?

A person who has never been a teacher, who has received only weekend training seminars when he decided to enter education, finds it easy to dismiss the commitment and dedication that teachers, who have dedicated their entire lives to teaching, have to educating all of our children.

Here’s a thought: rather than giving $550,000 to TFA, why not spend that money on the classrooms that are already filled? Why not hire an additional 10-15 teachers on our own and avoid the TFA overhead? Why not go to those “private sector” donors and ask them to support our classrooms to the tune of $1.6 million over the next three years instead?

Only a superintendent with no educational background (but who appreciates the benefits of working in education for himself and his friends), would think this a good idea.

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