Tag: education policy

Posted on in Education

Diane Ravitch on TFA’s Anti-TFA Campaign

In a reaction post to a Washington Post article, Diane Ravitch questions Teach For America’s anti-TFA campaign:

“Does TFA believe that a recent college graduate with five weeks of training should be responsible for children with disabilities? Do they think no special training is necessary? Are they saying that people who earn an M.A. or a doctorate in special education have wasted their time?

Does TFA ever reflect on its constant boasting? Does TFA ever feel a little bit ashamed of claiming that any TFA recruit is superior to an experienced teacher? Do their recruits have nothing to learn?”

You don’t realize how self-involved a organization can be until they spend at least a half a million dollars to ignore some of their most hurtful and obvious flaws. Diane’s questions highlight TFA’s undeniable damage by weaving their ill-prepared, yet well known, way of “training” their mostly temporary teachers into her poignant questions.

Wendy Kopp is aware of what her organization is doing. She’s just selfish and doesn’t want to accept the fact that  her organization does more harm than good. TFA seemed like a great idea and it was started based on what I believe to be good intentions, but those intentions are no longer good. TFA’s leadership is holding onto pride, control, power, money and a disgusting ego.

Posted on in Education

Teacher Shortage, More Subs

There’s a teacher shortage in America, according to the Washington Post.

The Washington Post interviewed a Pittsburgh student, who comments on how the teacher shortage effects her: “You’re looking at test scores,” she said of the school’s low performance on state standardized tests in math, science and reading. “But we didn’t have a stable teacher.”

The article delved into some noteworthy details on the severity of the shortage:

“Detroit needs 135 teachers — more than 5 percent of its teaching positions — and the city has just 90 subs, so principals or other school staffers must cover most of the remaining classes, according to a Detroit schools representative.”

…

This fall, she had a group of incoming freshmen who had not had a permanent math teacher in eighth grade. Eighty percent of them were not proficient in math, according to state tests, she said — because “they didn’t get instruction last year.”

All of this begs the question: Why?

The article gives an answer I hope Rheeformers can comprehend:

 

“They tend to employ teachers who are more inexperienced than the hires at affluent schools, and they often are not adequately trained for the intense environments they will face, making them more likely to leave, said Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor emerita at Stanford who heads the Learning Policy Institute, an education think tank. Inexperienced teachers also are often the first to be laid off in tough budget times, which means layoffs can disproportionately affect high-poverty schools.”

Teachers are leaving the profession because they are not equipped to deal with the realities of children living in poverty. The education system is not equipped for students living in poverty. Now teachers are leaving the system because they know it’s broken and the poor children are still poor. The education/equity gap widens. We need to face poverty in schools rather than ignore it.

Posted on in Education

News to Dallas School District: Students Need Recess

The Dallas Independent School District will implement at least a 20 minute recess for students in grades pre-k through 5th grade. Part of the reason for the policy change, according to ISD trustee, Dan Micciche, is that studies (surprisingly) show that recess is healthy for children.

It’s surprising that Dallas ISD didn’t think it was, well, sad for children to not have any playtime. Micchiche points out that recess throughout the disrctit varied: some schools had recess for their students, while others didn’t. Some schools used recess as part of a punishment-reward system and other schools had recess for some grades and not for others.

It’s almost 2016 and I’m not sure why some children are forced to sit in a classroom the entire day and are not given room for natural and carefree moments with the friends they’re learning with.

 

 

 

Posted on in Education

Penn Charter Network Systematically Cheated

After years of accusations and multiple investigations, Chester Community Charter Schools officially received confirmation that it systematically cheated on state exams. The sad part about the following expert is that the cheating coincided with the year the charter network was endanger of facing penalties for three consistent years of not meeting Race to the Top’s adequate yearly progress (AYP) requirement on state exams. The other sad issue is that Chester received more funding than its traditional counterparts, but Chester students performed just as poorly.

The Notebook, a Philadelphia newspaper, reports:

“PDE [Pennsylvania Department of Education] then spelled out strict testing protocols that the school said it would follow, including 24-hour security cameras where the tests are stored and in all classrooms in which students take them. In addition, PDE sent outside monitors to supervise all test administrations.

Through its history, CCCS [Chester Community Charter Schools] struggled to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), the test score and performance targets under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The school made AYP in 2004 but then fell short for four years in a row from 2005 through 2008.

A fifth year of failing to meet targets would have triggered sanctions under NCLB, including a potential change in management.

The scores climbed in 2009, and for three years in a row, through 2011, they were high enough for the school to earn Adequate Yearly Progress status, an indicator that enhanced the school’s credibility in the Chester community. The school’s enrollment saw continued growth.

After the strict test protocols were put in place in 2012, proficiency rates at CCCS plummeted by an average of 30 percentage points in every grade and subject. In letters to parents and the media, the school blamed the drop on budget cuts.

Since then, scores have remained low – similar to scores of some Chester-Upland district schools.

That district has been in dire financial straits for decades, most recently exacerbated by its huge payments to CCCS and two other charters.”