Dear Colleague,
Now that most districts in California begin the school year
in August, many of you are back in class. The post Labor Day starts seem to be
disappearing from the landscape. In any event, we hope that the beginning of
your school year has been (and will continue to be) a good one.
In the July letter, we told you about SB 1530 -- a bill that,
if passed, would have shortened the endless “dismissal procedures” and make it
easier to get rid of a teacher who has abused children with drugs, sex and
violence. The theme continued to stay in the limelight when former CNN and NBC
news reporter Campbell Brown wrote in the Wall Street Journal that in New
York, “Teachers Unions Go to Bat for Sexual Predators.”
Needless to say, AFT President Randi Weingarten couldn’t
ignore Brown’s op-ed and the two of them wound up in something of a cat fight
on Twitter. (http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2012/08/a_twitter_debate_on_teacher_se.html)
The National Council on Teacher Quality has a new
newsletter, TR3 Trends, aimed at school officials, but we see no
reason why the information it contains would not be of interest to teachers.
Each month they use data from NCTQ's TR3 database to “highlight the
latest trends in school district policies and collective bargaining agreements
nationwide. TR3 contains teacher policies from 113 school districts,
including the 50 largest districts, the largest district in each state, Broad
Prize winners, Gates investment districts, and members of the Council of the
Great City Schools.” For more information, go to http://www.nctq.org/p/tqb/pdq.jsp?tag=TR3%20Trends
On the same note we found an excellent op-ed in the New York
Post recently, which describes a teacher’s frustration with the New
York City school district’s ability to retain great
teachers. The writer is leaving the teaching profession, and while describing New
York, she undoubtedly speaks for many educators all
over the country. The op-ed can be found here - http://www.educators4excellence.org/news/2012-07-why-nyc-cant-keep-great-teachers
We all know that data can be skewed to make a protagonist’s
argument. The following video makes this point graphically and purports to
outline the real state of California K-
12 schools. “The presentation shows that our state is not
really making any real progress at improving actual student subject mastery.
The analysis details the performance of some of the state's largest districts,
as well as some of the author’s local district's as a way to clarify important
information.” See if you agree with the video which can be found here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwru7faexew
Another video worth watching, especially for those of you
who are looking for an alternative to the teachers union, comes from our
friends at the Association of American Educators which is the largest
non-union, professional educators' organization in the country. They advance the
profession by offering “a modern approach to teacher representation and
educational advocacy, as well as promoting professionalism, collaboration and
excellence without a partisan agenda.” To watch the video, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lC0ornsg_4&feature=player_embedded
Researcher Jay Greene has written an important blog post in
which he proclaims that “Charter Benefits Are Proven by the Best Evidence.”
Referring to randomized control trials (RCT), he says, “Happily, we have four
RCTs on the effects of charter schools that allow us to know something about
the effects of charter schools with high confidence. Here is what we
know: students in urban areas do significantly better in school if they
attend a charter school than if they attend a traditional public school.
These academic benefits of urban charter schools are quite large. In Boston,
a team of researchers from MIT, Harvard, Duke, and the University
of Michigan, conducted a RCT and
found: ‘The charter school effects reported here are therefore large
enough to reduce the black-white reading gap in middle school by two-thirds.’”
To read Greene’s blog post, go to http://jaypgreene.com/2012/05/07/charter-benefits-are-proven-by-the-best-evidence/
For those of you who are interested in getting more info about
charter schools or are possibly interested in working in one, the best place to
start is the Center for Education Reform FAQ page - http://www.edreform.com/2012/03/just-the-faqs-charter-schools/
CTEN is in the process of setting up a
YouTube network in which we will try to present various issues in a simple,
easy-to-understand way. Topics will include agency fee status, religious
objector status, charter school basics, an explanation of vouchers, etc. We
will have more information in the “official” welcome back newsletter in
September.
Also, next month, we will have information about the steps
needed to attain agency fee status. (If you are already an agency fee payer and
plan to apply for your yearly rebate, make sure not to do so before September
1st.)
If you are interested in giving CTEN brochures to
colleagues, you can print them right from the home page - http://www.ctenhome.org/index.htm Or, if you prefer, we will be happy to send
you as many preprinted ones as you need.
And finally, we still have a limited number of t-shirts
available. They are navy blue with the CTEN logo on front and “A resource for
all who care about education” printed on the back. They come preshrunk, in
small, medium, large and extra large. If you would like one, all you have to do
is make a $15 donation to CTEN via PayPal - http://www.ctenhome.org/donate.htm
) Then, please let us know what size and where to send it and we will get it
out to you.
As always, we at
CTEN want to thank you for your ongoing support. Please keep providing feedback
so that we can continue to meet your needs by keeping you informed as well as
provoking lively discussion. Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Larry Sand
CTEN President
CTEN President
