Weingarten Outlines Comprehensive Education Reform Plan

[proud2BlibKansan]

In a major speech Jan. 12 at the National Press Club, AFT president Randi Weingarten unveiled a serious and comprehensive reform plan to ensure great teaching, taking on systems that have been ingrained in public education for more than a century.

Weingarten said it is imperative to move public education from an industrial model to one that will better prepare students for today's knowledge economy. She laid out a new approach to teacher evaluation, saying that a strong teacher development and evaluation system is crucial to improving teaching, and is essential for a fair and efficient due process system. Weingarten said the union is prepared to work with any district willing to take both steps: to create and implement a real evaluation system, and to establish a due process system aligned to it.

Weingarten announced that Kenneth Feinberg has agreed to spearhead the AFT's effort to develop an efficient protocol for handling allegations of teacher misconduct. The AFT president also detailed what teachers need to help their students succeed, and she discussed how to promote productive labor-management relationships, seeking out governors, mayors, school boards and superintendents to join in this effort.

In her speech, "A New Path Forward: Four Approaches to Quality Teaching and Better Schools," Weingarten said improving schools, ensuring high-quality teaching and raising student achievement takes a much more comprehensive approach than what some are fixated on—"the supposed silver bullet of doing away with 'bad teachers.'"

more . . . http://www.aft.org/newspubs/news/2010/011210a.cfm

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Randi's email to members

Yesterday, I delivered a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., setting forth a comprehensive plan that can help move public education from an industrial model to one that will better prepare students for today's knowledge economy. My speech is an effort to focus public attention on what it takes to develop and support great teachers and great teaching. I wanted to let you know that a full video and transcript of my speech is available at www.aft.org.

In the year and a half since I was elected AFT president, I have had the opportunity to travel around the country and talk with countless AFT members. It is clear from these conversations that our members are working to improve public education and that many are taking the lead in these efforts, sometimes in very tough environments.

You know what it takes to improve education, but too often teachers' voices are not heard, much less heeded. Together, we need to be in the forefront of the fight to make sure teachers are listened to, and are given access to the tools you and your students need to succeed. Too often, the positive contributions teachers make are ignored or lost in the noise chamber created by those who want to affix blame rather than work toward solutions. The argument we hear so often—that all the problems in our schools are the result of "bad teachers"—not only obscures the fact that "ineffective teachers" are far outnumbered by those who are successful, but fails to recognize that to improve public education, we must improve public education systems.

Last summer in a nationwide poll of our members, we asked the following question: When your union deals with issues affecting both teaching quality and teachers' rights, which of these should be the higher priority—working for professional teaching standards and good teaching, or defending the job rights of teachers who face disciplinary action? By a ratio of 4 to 1 (69 percent to 16 percent), AFT members chose working for professional standards and good teaching as the higher priority.

My speech tries to create a new path forward toward a stronger education system that is defined by excellence, fairness, shared responsibility and mutual trust. We need a system that is rooted in the realities of the 21st century, focused squarely on serving the needs of our children and preparing them to reach their full potential as workers, citizens and individuals.

We offered four proposals to provide teachers the wherewithal—the tools, time and trust—they need to help their students succeed, including offering a new approach to teacher development and evaluation; developing a fair and efficient due process system to deal with cases of misconduct; and creating better, and real, partner-based labor-management relationships, in order to create the trusting environment our members need.

The speech unveils the work the AFT ad hoc committee on teacher evaluations did to overhaul the current process and transform it into one that is predicated on continuous improvement and multiple measures to assess teachers. The committee was made up of union leaders from around the country with input from some of America's top teacher evaluation experts. It reiterates that our union is prepared and willing to work with any district willing to take both steps of creating and implementing a real evaluation system and establishing a due process system aligned to it.

We know we can't improve schools alone, that we need to work with community leaders, parents, administrators, elected officials and other stakeholders. All of us must help strengthen those relationships, so together we can work with common purpose to strengthen our schools.

Today, I was inspired by our members, just as I was when I was president of our New York City local. Hundreds of them have recently shared their stories. One in particular stuck out to me—and I thought many of you would relate to it. It comes from Emily Graham in Michigan:

"I teach because I care. I teach because I know I make a difference. I teach because I place a high value on children, and believe in my heart that it should be of the utmost priority to teach this generation how important education is. I teach because I want to change the world: one child, one classroom, one school, one district at a time. I teach because it is my love, it is my passion, and it is my future."

I hope you'll take a few moments to watch my speech and share your thoughts with me. Our union's work should reflect the many views and opinions of our members—and your feedback is an important part of that.

Thank you for your commitment to education. Together, we can build a new path forward for our children's futures—and our own.

With gratitude,

Randi Weingarten
AFT president

[Catshrink]

2. This is what Arne/Obama needs to hear:

"You know what it takes to improve education, but too often teachers' voices are not heard, much less heeded. Together, we need to be in the forefront of the fight to make sure teachers are listened to, and are given access to the tools you and your students need to succeed. Too often, the positive contributions teachers make are ignored or lost in the noise chamber created by those who want to affix blame rather than work toward solutions. The argument we hear so often—that all the problems in our schools are the result of "bad teachers"—not only obscures the fact that "ineffective teachers" are far outnumbered by those who are successful, but fails to recognize that to improve public education, we must improve public education systems."

Arne thinks he knows all there is to know about teaching because he went to school. Arne is an ignorant ass.

[Dinger]

3. A Creepy Herman Munster If Ever I Saw One

Puke

[mzteris]

4. AFT & Weingarten support Charters . . .

"Since the first charter schools opened in the early 1990s, unionized public-school teachers have seen them as a threat to enrollment in their classrooms, and therefore a threat to their jobs.

"We thought charter-school teachers were taking our jobs and taking our students," says Debra Blackmon-Parrish, a district supervisor at the Teachers Union and public-school teacher at Chicago's Songhai Learning Institute. "That's how we felt because that's what we were told."

Now, says Blackmon-Parrish, the message has changed.

Teacher crowd rallies for union effort at charter school* By Adrian G. Uribarri • April 16, 2009 @ 11:15 AM

. . . "It's not like that at all," she says. "They're teachers just like we are, and they have rights just like we do."

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, is quick to point out that her predecessor, the iconic Shanker, was an early supporter of charter schools. Weingarten's speech to the Teachers Union yesterday backed Ly and his fellow teachers, and it electrified the room with shouts that belied her small frame.

Weingarten explains that the perception of acrimony between unions and charter schools could stem from funding formulas that pit one kind of school against another. She acknowledges that "maybe it is a nuanced position," emphasizing that it is not animosity.

"We actually always embraced charter schools," Weingarten says. "What you're seeing is a frustration that there's not a level playing field."

*********

From the AFT website:

"The American Federation of Teachers strongly supports charter schools that embody the core values of public education and a democratic society: equal access for all students; high academic standards; accountability to parents and the public; a curriculum that promotes good citizenship; a commitment to helping all public schools improve; and a commitment to the employees' right to freely choose union representation.

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are granted autonomy from some state and local regulations in exchange for meeting the terms of each school's charter. State laws, which vary widely, govern who can authorize charters, who can apply for them, and the total number allowed. Today, there are more than 4,000 charter schools across 40 states and the District of Columbia, enrolling more than 1 million children.

[Hannah Bell]

5. In a speech to the National Press Club in 1988,

Shanker proposed the idea of teacher-led "charter schools" where rules could be bent if the great majority of teachers in a small school approved. He called on districts to "create joint school board-union panels that would review preliminary proposals and help find seed money for the teachers to develop final proposals."

..."Shanker "watched with alarm as the concept he put forward began to move away from a public-school reform effort to look more like a private-school voucher plan. Shanker came to believe that the charter school movement was largely hijacked by conservatives who made many charter schools vulnerable to the same groups that made voucher schools so dangerous: for-profit corporations, racial separatists, the religious right, and anti-union activists...Shanker watched with dismay as 'those who had tremendous contempt for public education' jumped on to the charter school bandwagon."

[tonysam]

6. Shanker should have done his research

for if he had, he would have known charter schools were just a trojan horse to completely dismantle public education.

"Competition" cannot work for institutions which are designed for the public good.

[Smarmie Doofus]

11. Interesting. Do you have a link?

>>>>Shanker proposed the idea of teacher-led "charter schools" where rules could be bent if the great majority of teachers in a small school approved.>>>>>


" *TEACHER*-led ". He was talking about schools run by unionized professionals who could opt out of idiotic lock-step curricula and standardized testing. No teacher I know would oppose that.

But that's not what charters as implemented today are about.

[tonysam]

12. This is Weingarten talking about Shanker

For Shanker, charter schools meant something quite different. In the 1980’s, with the release of A Nation At Risk, school reform took on a new and national urgency. The American Federation of Teachers led the way in its embrace of numerous reforms including peer review, public school choice, national board certification for teachers, career ladders for teacher advancement with differentiated pay and rigorous promotional and academic standards. But Shanker grew increasingly frustrated with a spate of top-down reforms that ignored the expertise of teachers, replaced their professional judgment with “teacher-proof” methodologies, and, in his estimation, missed 80% of the students they were intended to help.

Shanker believed that a different, bottom-up approach was necessary to reach all students and to unleash the expertise found within the teaching ranks. He developed the ideas of educator Ray Budde (who first coined the term "charter") and proposed in a landmark 1988 National Press Club speech the idea of education by charter. Shanker described an arrangement where groups of teachers and parents would be given significant autonomy to implement a research-based proposal for a new school. The school would be publicly funded, accountable for its results and closed if a failure. He thought of charter schools as laboratories for innovation with their successful practices adopted by school systems throughout nation.

Shanker’s charter proposal, which he advocated across the country, is deeply professional. It believes that expert teachers have the judgment to develop the right learning strategies necessary to reach all students. It’s an empowering vision that grants professional autonomy to educators who will be accountable for results. It connects practitioners to their practice in a meaningful way. And it rests on a foundation of fairness guaranteed by union membership.

link

Fat chance Shanker's vision would ever come true. In fact, it sounds downright naive now that the right and venture philanthropists are calling the shots. Fat chance teachers, let alone parents, would EVER run schools.

[mzteris]

14. Over 3/4 of charters are "free-standing" -

meaning they are run by independent groups - parents, teachers, etc. . .

Freestanding 3,581 77.5%

EMO 484 10.5% (for-profit educational management organizations)

CMO 553 12.0% (charter management organization - CMO's are NONPROFIT networks of schools)



All that said, I personally prefer the "free-standing" models. The jury is still out for me on the CMO's - but I personally don't like the concept of the EMO. Fortunately, they ARE in the minority.

Now, if a "model" is working - and working well - I can see utilizing a "cmo" type approach. Maybe. I think it would depend. My personal experience has been with the independent schools.

[Hannah Bell]

17. Source of statistic: National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Funded by the Walmart:

"Walton has been a long-time funder of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools a nonprofit, pro-charter research & advocacy group, and of the Alliance's predecessor, the Charter Friend's National Network. Charter Friends received nearly 1 million from the foundation 2002-2003, & since then the Alliance has received an additional 1.5 million from Walton (written in 2006).


2007 funding from Walton Family Foundation: National Alliance for Public Charter Schools: $2.1 million.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:KtZIkCkjAKIJ:www.publiccharters.org/files/pressreleases/Grant%2520Release%2520Final%252012-3.pdf+%22national+alliance+for+public+charter+schools%22+walton+grant&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AHIEtbQNl1Je8_A1aXPShG4IBtR9mc0qfg

[Smarmie Doofus]

18. Ouch. Hey , take some prisoners once in a while, will ya? nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. Bears repeating:

Shanker came to believe that the charter school movement was largely hijacked by conservatives who made many charter schools vulnerable to the same groups that made voucher schools so dangerous

I miss Al.

“There is no more reason to pay for private education than there is to pay for a private swimming pool for those who do not use public facilities.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/24/nyregion/albert-shanker-68-combative-leader-who-transformed-teachers-union-dies.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1,

[Catshrink]

7. One note Charlie strikes again.

[mzteris]

9. actually - I'm more of a chord person

seeing as I how support MULTIPLE options, instead of just ONE.

[Hannah Bell]

13. we know what kind of person you are.

[LWolf]

8. It sounds like she attributes any problems

preparing students for the future to poor teaching.

Are you sure she's the president of a teacher's union? :wtf:

What do you think about this?

[Smarmie Doofus]

10. I think she had a change of heart while negotiating with Bloomberg.

Specifically around 2005. We discussed it in a thread below:



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=219x17778

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. I like what she says about evaluations

I propose a comprehensive approach to developing great teaching that supports professional growth at every stage of a teacher's career. This approach includes rigorous reviews by trained expert and peer evaluators and principals, based on professional teaching standards, best practices and student achievement. The goal of any evaluation system must be continuous improvement--an opportunity for growth. When the driving force is getting rid of "bad teachers," it doesn't work. When the goal is continuous improvement, evaluation becomes an instrument that informs teaching and learning. The same is true of data that describes student learning. It can be a powerful tool that helps us understand what is working and should be replicated, as well as what isn't working and needs to be abandoned.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randi-weingarten/a-new-path-forward-for-pu_b_425386.html

[LWolf]

19. That sounds okay.

How it plays out in reality will be the sticking point, won't it?