Dear Colleague,

As widely reported, AB 375, California’s latest attempt to simplify the teacher dismissal statutes, was fast-tracked through the state legislature in September. The bill was excoriated by various reformers, including EdVoice’s Bill Lucia and former state senator Gloria Romero. Additionally, the California School Board Association lobbied heavily to kill the bill. The two major proponents of the legislation were the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers. Governor Jerry Brown, however, vetoed the bill last Thursday. To read more about the bill, go to http://www.city-journal.org/2013/cjc1010ls.html

But AB 484, which suspends standardized school testing for a year, had a different fate. This time the governor signed off on the legislation. To read more, go to http://laschoolreport.com/brown-signs-ab-484-ending-old-standardized-tests-california/

Christina Hoff Sommers has written “How to Make School Better for Boys,” a very provocative piece for The Atlantic. The subhead reads, “Start by acknowledging that boys are languishing while girls are succeeding.” She claims that,

As the United States moves toward a knowledge-based economy, school achievement has become the cornerstone of lifelong success. Women are adapting; men are not. Yet the education establishment and federal government are, with some notable exceptions, looking the other way.

To continue reading, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/how-to-make-school-better-for-boys/279635/

In something of a companion piece, also in The Atlantic, Sommers writes “The Bizarre, Misguided Campaign to Get Rid of Single-Sex Classrooms.” She takes the ACLU and like-minded groups to task for comparing single sex classrooms to racially segregated classes.

Race and sex are different, as the Supreme Court has emphasized and as most everyone recognizes. Mandatory racial separatism demeans human beings and forecloses life prospects. Single-sex education is freely chosen and has helped millions of pupils flourish intellectually and socially. It’s preposterous to think of Wellesley College, the Girl Scouts or the Barack Obama Male Leadership Academy as oppressive institutions comparable to segregated schools in the Jim Crow South.  

For more, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/the-bizarre-misguided-campaign-to-get-rid-of-single-sex-classrooms/280262/

Are you a tough teacher? Do you call your kids “idiots” when they screw up? My guess that you don’t and that a vast majority would find this abusive. But writer Joannne Lipman has another take. In The Wall Street Journal, she makes a compelling case for the opposite in “Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results.”

I had a teacher once who called his students "idiots" when they screwed up. He was our orchestra conductor, a fierce Ukrainian immigrant named Jerry Kupchynsky, and when someone played out of tune, he would stop the entire group to yell, "Who eez deaf in first violins!?" He made us rehearse until our fingers almost bled. He corrected our wayward hands and arms by poking at us with a pencil.

Today, he'd be fired. But when he died a few years ago, he was celebrated: Forty years' worth of former students and colleagues flew back to my New Jersey hometown from every corner of the country, old instruments in tow, to play a concert in his memory. I was among them, toting my long-neglected viola. When the curtain rose on our concert that day, we had formed a symphony orchestra the size of the New York Philharmonic.

I was stunned by the outpouring for the gruff old teacher we knew as Mr. K. But I was equally struck by the success of his former students. Some were musicians, but most had distinguished themselves in other fields, like law, academia and medicine. Research tells us that there is a positive correlation between music education and academic achievement. But that alone didn't explain the belated surge of gratitude for a teacher who basically tortured us through adolescence.

To continue reading this thoughtful and controversial piece, please go to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304213904579095303368899132.html

As some of you may know, the Los Angeles Unified School District is attempting to get an iPad into the hands of every one of its 650,000 or so students. Unfortunately, the roll-out has been nothing short of disastrous. Many have been lost and hacked, and there seems to be no policy which addresses these and other issues. If nothing else, this should be a cautionary tale for other districts about what not to do. To learn more about this messy situation, go to http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2013/1001/1-billion-iPad-giveaway-at-L.A.-schools-Bad-idea-or-poor-execution-video

According to a recent study, Teach For America’s secondary math teachers have been proven to be more effective than traditionally trained math teachers “working in the same schools, no matter how much experience the TFA teachers had.” To read more about the study, go here - http://www.nctq.org/commentary/viewStory.do?id=33737

While the program has been quite successful, TFA is still attacked in some quarters. In a recent, article in The Atlantic, “I Quit Teach for America,” a TFA alum writes about her experiences. After reading this piece, another TFA grad responded with “Remember the 'I Quit Teach for America' essay? Here's the counterpoint. 'I stayed.'” To read the pro and con pieces go to http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/i-quit-teach-for-america/279724/  and

http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/get-schooled/2013/oct/03/remember-i-quit-teach-america-heres-counterpoint-i/

The following is a copy and paste from last month’s letter. It is a reminder that if you are an agency fee payer and requesting a rebate or are planning to become one and want to get a full rebate, the time to do so is now.

If your politics don’t happen to jibe with CTA’s, or you don’t think that a teachers union should be spending money on issues that have nothing to do with teaching or education, you might want to consider not giving them the 30+ percent of your dues that go toward politics. If you’d like more information about your options, please go to http://www.ctenhome.org/know.htm

If you do decide to make this move, it is a two-step process. First, you must resign from the union, thus becoming an agency fee payer, and then request that the political part of your dues be returned to you. Sample letters for both steps are available here - http://www.ctenhome.org/knowMembership.htm#exoptions  If you already are an agency fee payer, you must request your rebate this year (and every year!) by November 15th. If you are as much as one day late, you will not get a penny. Also, because liability insurance is important for teachers, we suggest joining the Association of American Educators http://www.aaeteachers.org/  or Christian Educators Association http://www.ceai.org/  Both AAE and CEAI are professional organizations, not unions, and are apolitical. (Also, teachers who mention CTEN when they sign up with AAE for the first time will get a $30 discount off the regular $180 first year membership.)

As always, we at CTEN want to thank you for your ongoing support. Please visit us regularly at www.ctenhome.org.  We do our best to keep our website up-to-date, but if you need information and can’t find it there, please send us an email at cteninfo@ctenhome.org or call us at 888-290-8471 and we will get back to you in short order.

Sincerely,

Larry Sand

CTEN President

Dear Colleague,

 

Welcome back! By now all school districts in California are in session, and we hope that the start of the school year has gone well for all of you.

 

We also hope that you enjoyed your time off, because according to Brookings Institution fellow Matthew M. Chingos, the long summer break is an anachronism that needs to go.

 

Summer is a popular time to write opinion pieces calling for the end of summer vacation as an anachronism that widens achievement gaps between rich and poor students.  The details of the argument vary, but the basic premise rests on research indicating that students from disadvantaged backgrounds experience learning loss over the summer while their more affluent peers often make learning gains.  

 

There's clearly a slam-dunk case for eliminating (or at least dramatically shortening) summer vacation, which fits into a broader push to lengthen the school year beyond the 180 days that is typical in the United States.

To continue reading, go to http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=23490

The new year holds many changes for teachers and students in California. As of this writing, testing is in the news. AB 484 is a bill that would suspend standardized school testing for a year. While the suspension seems to be popular here, Arne Duncan is not happy with it.

 

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said California’s request for a one-year reprieve from using STAR tests in math and English for the current school year is unacceptable and may force his department to “take action.”

To read more, go to http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/11/5725597/jerry-brown-pushes-school-testing.html

 

“Better Pay, Fairer Pensions for Los Angeles Teachers?” Too good to be true? Maybe not. A Manhattan Institute report by Marcus Winters and Josh McGee tells us that they have developed a plan that would allow the Los Angeles Unified School District to give teachers

 

a more desirable compensation package with considerably higher take-home salaries and improved retirement benefits — all without costing taxpayers a penny more. Making these changes would not only reward teachers, but would also positively affect student achievement by improving the district’s ability to recruit and retain the best teachers on the market.

While specifically addressing Los Angeles, their ideas could certainly be implemented elsewhere. To learn more go to http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=9595#.UjHkHj83aup

 

If your politics don’t happen to jibe with CTA’s, or you don’t think that a teachers union should be spending money on issues that have nothing to do with teaching or education, you might want to consider not giving them the 30+ percent of your dues that go toward politics. If you’d like more information about your options, please go to http://www.ctenhome.org/know.htm

 

If you do decide to make this move, it is a two-step process. First, you must resign from the union, thus becoming an agency fee payer, and then request that the political part of your dues be returned to you. Sample letters for both steps are available here - http://www.ctenhome.org/knowMembership.htm#exoptions  If you already are an agency fee payer, you must request your rebate this year (and every year!) by November 15th. If you are as much as one day late, you will not get a penny. Also, because liability insurance is important for teachers, we suggest joining the Association of American Educators http://www.aaeteachers.org/  or Christian Educators Association http://www.ceai.org/  Both AAE and CEAI are professional organizations, not unions, and are apolitical. (Also, teachers who mention CTEN when they sign up with AAE for the first time will get a $30 discount off the regular $180 first year membership.)

 

Last week, we sent you an email regarding the possibility of setting up your own local teachers union and not having to pay dues to a state and national affiliate. If you missed that email, its contents will be pasted in at the end of this letter.

 

Whatever you may think of our teachers unions, Mexico’s are even more powerful … or at least they were. Among other things, teachers, until now, have been able sell their jobs or give them to a family member. But the people are fighting back. The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O'Grady gives details in “Mexicans Take On the Teachers Unions.” To read the story, go to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324123004579057310467988616.html

 

Think we need to use more data in education? Or maybe you think the push for more data is harming the education process? A provocative piece in the New York Times makes a strong case for the latter.

 

What works in science and math education? Until recently, there had been few solid answers — just guesses and hunches, marketing hype and extrapolations from small pilot studies.

 

But now, a little-known office in the Education Department is starting to get some real data, using a method that has transformed medicine: the randomized clinical trial, in which groups of subjects are randomly assigned to get either an experimental therapy, the standard therapy, a placebo or nothing.

 

To read more, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/science/applying-new-rigor-in-studying-education.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&

 

And speaking of data, Erik Hanushek et al have written a book that sounds several alarm bells.

Endangering Prosperity: A Global View of the American School delivers five main points:

1. We are not competitive internationally in terms of our schools and the skills of our population.
2. Other countries have shown that it is possible to improve. Indeed some of our states have shown the same thing: Maryland, Delaware, Florida, and Massachusetts,
3. If we can improve, the potential economic gains are huge. If we do not improve, we will be seriously hurt in the future – and the era of the “American Century” could come to an end.
4. A number of people – particularly those currently working in the schools – resist the fundamental changes that are needed, but we must find a way to improve our schools.
5. Improving our schools is not a partisan issues but one that faces all of our citizens.

To read an interview with Hanushek and learn more about the book, go to http://educationviews.org/an-interview-with-eric-hanushek-endangering-prosperity/

 

If you are a charter school teacher or thinking about working in one, AB 917, awaiting Governor Jerry Brown’s signature, may be of interest. Should it become law, this bill

 

would amend the state’s education code to require that at least half of unionized teachers and nonteaching staff at a school considering conversion to charter status sign a petition in order to make the switch. Existing law requires only that 50 percent of teachers or parents sign a petition, either for a new charter or a charter conversion.

 

To read more about AB 917 and charter schools’ relationship with teachers unions, go to http://www.city-journal.org/2013/cjc0906ls.html

 

If you were away over the summer and did not read the July and August letters, we encourage you to get caught up. Please visit http://www.ctenhome.org/newsletters.htm  to do so.

 

Are you still using your school email address to receive these emails? If so, we suggest that you switch to your personal email address. More and more school email programs are blocking us.

 

Finally, despite the many changes that are taking place in California, we hope that 2013-2014 will be a great one for you and your students.  As always, sincere thanks for your continued interest and support.

 

Sincerely,

 

Larry Sand

CTEN President

 

 

Here is a copy of the stand-alone email we sent you last week:

 

Last year, we sent you information about how California teachers could set up independent teachers associations and decertify or break away from CTA.

 

In the weeks and months following that article, many teachers from across the state contacted Rafael Ruano, an attorney with Goyette & Associates, and discussed their dissatisfaction with CTA and their desire to decertify their local chapter of CTA. A few of these teachers had the right combination of timing and support from their peers to move ahead and actually buck the system.

 

Here is an update from Mr. Ruano:

 

There are three CTA decertification elections scheduled to take place this fall (two of those elections will see the ballots counted on September 10 (Millville Elementary School District) and September 19 (Corning Union High School District) and in each of those school districts an overwhelming percentage of the teachers signed the petition to decertify (95%, 100%, and 75%) and there are high hopes that all elections will result in independent teachers association unaffiliated with CTA. When votes for the two elections are counted at the PERB (Public Employment Relations Board) offices in the coming days, CTEN will be the first to share the news.

 

What these teachers are deciding is whether to continue to pay CTA for representation that is very expensive and often nonresponsive, or transfer the collective bargaining rights of the teacher unit to their own employee organization. They will also lower dues by half or more, and retain professional representation that the teachers can contact whenever they have a need and whom the teachers control.

 

For many of you reading this, such an option may seem like a fantasy, but the reality is that tens of thousands of California public employees, including some teachers, belong to independent local employee associations and are not affiliated to large, statewide or national unions (such as CTA, SEIU, etc.) In the newly unified Washington Unified School District in Fresno, the Washington Unified Faculty Association (WUFA) has successfully negotiated a new agreement with the District that merged the contract language of three old, pre-district unification agreements. WUFA is moving forward in an independent manner, with all decisions being made by and for the teachers themselves. This “Better Model” (http://caindependentteachers.com/independent-teacher-association-model-representation/) works and teachers are slowly coming to this realization after years of paying millions of dollars to CTA with very little of that coming back to the teachers who paid it. To be totally up front, decertifying a local CTA chapter is not automatically going to happen everywhere. For one, there are statutory timing issues that only allow a decertification petition to be filed within a 30 day window period that is 90 to 120 days from the end of the existing MOU. (If your District is currently working without an MOU, it is considered “open” to decertification until a new MOU is adopted.) Also, if a school district is very large, there are practical difficulties in obtaining signatures of at least 30% of the teachers in the unit to support the petition; decertifying a district with 200 teachers is less difficult than one with 2,000 teachers. Lastly, each district and local CTA chapter has its own history and issues; there are some CTA chapters that have very good local leadership or that have seen very heavy CTA involvement in recent years, which do not make them good candidates for a decertification effort.

 

If you are a California teacher who is looking for an alternative way to provide representation to your district’s teachers without having to pay CTA and NEA dues, contact Rafael Ruano at Goyette & Associates at rruano@goyette-assoc.com or (888) 993-1600. Thanks.

Dear Colleague,

 

The National Education Association’s yearly convention has come and gone. No earth-shattering events this year, but the NEA share of union dues will go up $2 to $182 for 2013-2014. For a recap of the convention, Mike Antonucci has it all in a one-stop shop - http://www.eiaonline.com/2013/07/08/direct-links-to-all-nea-convention-blog-posts/

 

National Employee Freedom Week was a great success. Sixty-five groups in 37 states participated, with CTEN and the California Public Policy Center representing CA. There were over 20 op-eds published around the country, three appearances on national TV shows, numerous interviews on state and national radio shows, and coverage from The Wall Street Journal and many state and local media outlets.

 

Having spoken to many teachers, I know that I am not alone in my thoughts that ed school was pretty much a waste of time. As a step toward addressing the problem, the National Council on Teacher Quality has released the results of a very ambitious undertaking. According to the NCTQ website,

 

The first edition of the NCTQ Teacher Prep Review is an unprecedented evaluation of more than 1,100 colleges and universities that prepare elementary and secondary teachers. As a consumer tool, it allows aspiring teachers, parents and school districts to compare programs and determine which are doing the best -- and worst -- job of training new teachers.

 

If you are already credentialed, this may not be of particular interest to you, but for any aspiring young teachers, it could be a great help. To see the report go to http://www.nctq.org/dmsStage/Teacher_Prep_Review_2013_Report

 

“Failing NYC school principals are rarely fired” read the headline in a recent New York Post story.

They dole out discipline to teachers and students, but city school principals rarely get a taste of their own medicine.

In the past three years, just two of 14 principals formally accused of misconduct have been fired — and not a single boss in the city’s 1,600 schools was charged with incompetence, officials told The Post.

The disciplinary deficiency raises questions when 217 elementary and middle schools received grades of F, D or consecutive C’s on the city’s latest report cards, and 31 high schools rated D or F.

In an era where teacher accountability has become a serious topic, principals should certainly be brought into the discussion. While the story deals with New York City only, I think it’s safe to say that most veteran teachers in other parts of the country have had an encounter with a principal who has been subpar. To read this story, go here -http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/failing_principals_are_ax_evaders_NASA SNQ64LagnjDYiTtIyK

And while we are talking about accountability, as a not-too-subtle protest against Los Angeles Superintendent John Deasy’s new teacher accountability plan, the United Teachers of Los Angeles conducted a poll of its members in which the supe was evaluated. The Los Angeles Times’ Howard Blume wrote,

The L.A. teachers union pressed its campaign of criticism against L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy Thursday with the release of a survey in which 85% of those who responded rated him below average or poor.

The superintendent scored poorly on every one of 25 questions, which, taken together, were a read on the morale of teachers who participated. About 26% of union members returned the survey, according to United Teachers Los Angeles.

It is interesting to note that while the results were very one-sided, only about a quarter of LA’s teachers actually voted, which suggests that most teachers do not have deep feelings – one way or the other – about Deasy. To read the Times article, go to http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-deasy-poor-union-marks-20130711,0,5623534.story

 

Wonder about the value of high school sports? According to a new study, athletics can be quite valuable.

 

A random-assignment study of a high school athletics program shows that participating young men experienced a significant reduction in arrests for violent crimes and a significant increase in grade point averages and the probability of graduation.  Athletics help young men channel their aggression in acceptable ways, increases their grit, and moves them toward a path of success.

 

To learn more, go here - http://jaypgreene.com/2013/06/06/becoming-a-man-sports-edition/

 

According to The Heartland Institute, “California Schools to Train Kids to Sell ObamaCare.” Limited to Los Angeles for now, it could spread to the rest of the state.

 

The Los Angeles Unified School District will use a state grant to train teens to promote ObamaCare to family members. Covered California, the state's health insurance exchange, announced grants of $37 million on May 14 to promote the nationally unpopular law.

LAUSD will receive $990,000. The district listed as a primary outcome for its project, “Teens trained to be messengers to family members.”

Covered California spokeswoman Sarah Soto-Taylor said staff have not questioned this goal.  

“We have confidence that the model LA Unified brought to the table will be successful in reaching our target population, which includes family members of students,” she said.

LAUSD will also use tax-paid staff to promote ObamaCare through phone calls to students’ homes, in-class presentations, and meetings with employees eligible for ObamaCare’s taxpayer-covered healthcare, the grant award says.

To read more, go to http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/06/20/california-schools-train-kids-sell-obamacare

 

Recently, there was a brief televised debate between CTA President Dean Vogel and former State Senator (and current California director of Democrats for Education Reform) Gloria Romero. The discussion on SoCaL Insider with Rick Reiff was civilized, but it’s obvious that there is no love lost between these two. To watch it, go to http://watch.thirteen.org/video/2365019621/

 

As always, we at CTEN want to thank you for your ongoing support. Please visit us regularly at www.ctenhome.org.  We do our best to keep our website up-to-date, but if you need information and can’t find it there, please send us an email at cteninfo@ctenhome.org or call us at 888-290-8471 and we will get back to you in short order.

 

Hope you are all having a great summer!

 

Sincerely,

Larry Sand
CTEN President

Dear Colleague,

As the 2012-2013 school year draws to a close, there is a piece of litigation in the news that could become law by the time school starts again in late summer. AB 1266 would require that a pupil be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs, activities, and facilities, including athletic teams and competitions, consistent with his or her perceived gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records. In other words, if a boy thinks he’s a girl, he gets to play on female sports teams, use the girls’ bathroom, shower, etc. For more info on the bill, go to

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/ab_1251-1300/ab_1266_bill_20130425_amended_asm_v98.htm

If you believe the education establishment and mainstream media, you might think we are going through a bullying epidemic. However, as Choice Media’s Bob Bowdon reports, this is false.

… according to a task force report by the American Educational Research Association, that isn’t so.  In fact, the report found that the idea that bullying is worse now than in the past is simply not true. It says bullying is down 50 percent between 1995 and 2009.

To read more and access the AERA report, go to http://choicemedia.tv/2013/06/03/how-much-school-bullying-is-media-myth/

Bowdon also exploded another myth about the alleged evils of “for profit” charter schools.

The most recent serving of anti-for-profit narrative was in a Washington Post blog of May 20, by David Pickler, President of the National School Boards Association, titled "What's wrong with school 'choice"?  Here's what." (Choice was put in quotation marks.)  He referred to Louisiana's voucher law as "driven primarily by outside forces that want to make big profits on the backs of our nation's most vulnerable children."  Sounds bad, eh?   

It was enough to set off Jason Bedrick of the Cato Institute, who published a response the very next day, using a parallel interrogative title structure.  His piece was called, "Who's Afraid of School Profits?"

Bedrock pointed out that most of the private schools taking Louisiana vouchers are, in fact, non-profit.  Then he goes on to explain in the piece how selectively people like Pickler   apply their "money is corrupting" logic.  Jason Bedrick explained it to me too.

Oh, "outside forces want to make big profits on the backs of our nation's most vulnerable children."  Which is just patently absurd.  Nobody says, "That business, they're making a profit on the backs of their paying customers."  It doesn't make any sense at all.  When you think about it, really, these are schools that these families have chosen.  Who's really benefiting on the backs of these vulnerable children?  I would say it's the people that are fighting to continue the public school monopoly.

To continue reading, go to http://choicemedia.tv/2013/05/28/backlash-against-for-profit-school-bashing/#.UbnkQpxQCJ8

 

Researcher Greg Forster recently released his latest study on school choice and, as usual, his findings fly in the face of what the educational establishment tells us. A few of the key findings:

• Twelve empirical studies have examined academic outcomes for school choice participants using random assignment, the “gold standard” of social science. Of these, 11 find that choice improves student outcomes—six that all students benefit and five that some benefit and some are not affected. One study finds no visible impact. No empirical study has found a negative impact.
• Twenty-three empirical studies (including all methods) have examined school choice’s impact on academic outcomes in public schools. Of these, 22 find that choice improves public schools and one finds no visible impact. No empirical study has found that choice harms public schools.
• Six empirical studies have examined school choice’s fiscal impact on taxpayers. All six find that school choice saves money for taxpayers. No empirical study has found a negative fiscal impact.

To read more, go to http://www.edchoice.org/Research/Reports/A-Win-Win-Solution--The-Empirical-Evidence-on-School-Choice.aspx

 

In the current Education Matters, the Association of American Educators newsletter, there is a very interesting piece about online learning and one teacher’s experience with it. “How Blended Learning Saved My Teaching Career” details the story of a young teacher who had reached the breaking point and found that the blended learning model saved his career.

Blended learning is not about replacing teachers with machines. Rather, it’s about leveraging technology to provide students and teachers with immediate feedback, holding each individual student accountable for his or her academic success, and personalizing course work to best meet students exactly where they are. Dave Levin, one of the founders of the KIPP charter network, recently emphasized that blended learning relies upon skilled teachers. This point is absolutely critical: without highly e­ffective teachers and instruction, a blended-learning model cannot be successful or sustainable.

To continue reading this compelling story, go to https://www.aaeteachers.org/images/em/2013junnews.pdf

In the current issue of Education Next, there is a very informative article in which June Kronholz examines the recipe that has made Teach for America’s 24 year record of growth possible. 

Among the key reasons, she finds, are TFA’s accountable, analytical, and adaptable managerial practices….

TFA placed 10,400 teachers in 2012 and its plans call for expansion to 15,000 teachers by 2015.  Its teachers worked in 3,200 public schools in 2013.  Of the 48,000 applicants for TFA openings in 2012, which included 11 percent of Yale’s graduating class, only 8,200, or 17%, were accepted.  TFA reports that 550 alumni have become school principals, 100 are system leaders, and 70 hold elected offices.  Almost three-quarters of TFA’s revenues came from philanthropy in 2011—$194 million, up $40 million from 2010.  To meet the new goals, including projects in another 18 countries, TFA will need revenues of a half billion dollars a year.

To read more, go to http://educationnext.org/still-teaching-for-america/

It’s hardly a secret that America’s schools of education – to understate the case – don’t do a very good job. In the summer 2013 issue of Education Next, National Council on Teacher Quality president Kate Walsh does an excellent job of pinpointing the problems and makes some good common sense suggestions as to how to improve teacher training.

Shocked by teacher education’s refusal to train teachers to use scientifically based reading methods, Reid Lyon, who headed a 30-year study at the National Institutes of Health of how people best learn to read, once stated, “If there was any piece of legislation that I could pass it would be to blow up colleges of education.”

To read this hard-hitting piece, go to http://educationnext.org/21st-century-teacher-education/

Talking about “hard-hitting,” LAUSD chief John Deasy, fed up with playing nice with abusive teachers, got rid of a bunch of them last month. He axed 100, got 200 more to resign and is “housing” 300 others.

The personnel files stretched the length of the 15-foot conference table in Superintendent John Deasy's office, a chronicle of the corporal punishment, verbal and physical abuse and sexual misconduct reported in the classrooms of the Los Angeles Unified School District. 

Cuts and bruises. Curses and racial slurs. Caresses and pornography.

In the past, the misdeeds detailed in the teachers' files would likely have earned the offender a disciplinary memo, maybe a week's suspension, perhaps a transfer to another school.

Today, they're grounds for firing.

Under the zero-tolerance policy that Deasy enacted after the Miramonte Elementary sex-abuse scandal erupted in February 2012, the school board has voted to dismiss more than 100 teachers for misconduct, and accepted the resignations of at least 200 others who were about to be terminated. Nearly 300 additional teachers accused of inappropriate behavior remain "housed" in administrative offices while officials investigate the complaints.

To read more, go to http://www.whittierdailynews.com/bellremembered/ci_23220307/lausd-cracks-down-teacher-misconduct-100-fired-200

 

We recently sent you a special email about National Employee Freedom Week. In case you missed it, here is the salient information:

National Employee Freedom Week is a national effort to inform union employees of the freedom they have regarding opting out of union membership and making the decision about union membership that’s best for them. Often that choice is freeing themselves from union membership, becoming an agency fee payer, or identifying as a religious/conscientious objector. 

Additionally, many employees are thrilled to learn that alternative professional associations provide better benefits and professional development opportunities for a fraction of the cost of union membership. 

To learn more, visit the NEFW website – http://employeefreedomweek.com/

 

If you are still using a school email to receive these newsletters, please consider sending us your personal email address. More and more school districts are blocking CTEN.  In any event, if you enjoy these letters and find them informative, please pass them along to your colleagues and encourage them to join us.

If you would like to see us address certain issues, topics, etc. in these newsletters or on our website – http://www.ctenhome.org – please let us know. And have a great summer!  

Sincerely,

Larry Sand
CTEN President