Dear Colleague,

Richard Lee Colvin, former Executive Director of Education Sector and currently a Visiting Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation, has written an article for the Spring 2013 Education Next, in which he claims that

A new analysis examines the growing array of groups spawned by the “teacher voice” movement, which promotes opportunities for teachers to have much greater involvement in shaping and improving their profession than they have had under the traditional union-dominated system.  More than half of all teachers now have fewer than 10 years of experience, and this younger generation is driving the movement. 

It seems that we have been hearing these claims for a while now, but maybe this time it’s for real. To read Colvin’s piece, go to http://educationnext.org/taking-back-teaching/

In another piece in the same issue of Education Next, writer June Kronholz, documents the amount of education lost when a teacher calls for a sub.

…Duke researchers found that being taught by a sub for 10 days a year has a larger effect on a child’s math score than if he’d changed schools, and about half the size of the effect of poverty. Columbia researchers Mariesa Herrmann and Jonah Rockoff concluded that the effect on learning of using a substitute for even a day is greater than the effect of replacing an average teacher with a terrible one, that is, a teacher in the 10th percentile for math instruction and the 20th percentile in English instruction.

To read more, go to http://educationnext.org/no-substitute-for-a-teacher/

The history wars continue. Professor Larry Schweikart recently came out with “A Patriot's History of the Modern World: From America's Exceptional Ascent to the Atomic Bomb: 1898-1945” as a follow up to his 2007 tome, “A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror.” Whereas too many modern textbooks give a revisionist brand of history (and in Howard Zinn’s case, a fictitious one), Dr. Schweikart’s heavily documented tomes go into great detail to ensure the reader that there is a singular truth to be learned. To read more about Dr. Schweikart and his books, please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Schweikart

On a similar note, back in 2010, AEI launched a major new initiative,

…the Program on American Citizenship, dedicated to strengthening the foundations of American freedom and self-government by renewing our understanding of American citizenship. The ultimate goal of the Program is to deepen Americans’ appreciation for and attachment to those principles that are necessary to keep the United States free, strong, and democratic.

AEI is now in its second phase of its program, “Counting on Character: National Heritage Academies and Civic Education.” This part of the initiative focuses on National Heritage Academies (NHA) charter schools. Here they focus on Ridge Park, a NHA school. Every day starts

with the Pledge of Allegiance, the Star-Spangled Banner, and the school creed: “I am a Ridge Park scholar. I strive to achieve academic excellence. I exemplify high moral character. I work

diligently to prepare for the future . . .” Character education is ubiquitous and relentless at

NHA schools. Each month is assigned a “moral focus” or virtue, which teachers are supposed to weave into their lessons and students write about from kindergarten through eighth grade. Signs in classrooms and hallways honor examples of virtue. Like other charter schools, NHA promises parents to teach a rigorous curriculum that will prepare their children for success in college. It also promises a moral education imbued with traditional values such as love of country and family. Good character is not just a private asset, NHA leaders believe. It leads to good citizenship.

To learn more about the AEI project, please go to http://www.citizenship-aei.org/projects/  and http://www.citizenship-aei.org/2013/01/aei-report-counting-on-character-national-heritage-academies-and-civic-education/

The National Council on Teacher Quality is out with its latest state by state report on teacher preparation, and it’s not pretty. You may not be shocked to learn that NCTQ gives California a “D.” To read about the report, go to http://www.nctq.org/p/tqb/viewStory.jsp?id=33564  To read specifically about CA, go to http://www.nctq.org/stpy11/reports/stpy12_california_report.pdf

In the light of the Sandy Hook massacre, California state assemblyman Tim Donnelly has written AB 202, which would make it legal for qualified teachers to carry firearms on school grounds anonymously. Needless to say, the bill is controversial and it will be a tough sell in the legislature. To read more, go here - http://politichicks.tv/column/ca-assemblyman-proposes-marshal-program-in-ca-schools/ To read the bill, go to http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/ab_0201-0250/ab_202_bill_20130129_introduced.html  Independent of Mr. Donnelly’s proposed law, Fontana has gone ahead and bought AR-15s to protect its students. (http://news.yahoo.com/fontana-calif-schools-high-powered-rifles-184934771.html)  CTEN will be surveying its members in the near future. One of its questions will concern itself with the level of armed security that you are comfortable with on your campus.

Looking for a way to celebrate Black History Month? A viewing of Dr. Ben Carson’s National Prayer Breakfast talk may be an uplifting experience for your students. Please preview the video and see what you think. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8kJbNPLSR8) For a shorter video, in which Dr. Carson talks about role models, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxXGSbam7JE

And finally, there is the very sad story about Hamlet Garcia and his family. As former California state senator Gloria Romero reports in the Orange County Register,

The latest arrest occurred in Pennsylvania where Mr. and Mrs. Hamlet Garcia were arrested, handcuffed, made to perform the "perp walk," charged and, if convicted, face up to seven years in prison for enrolling their 5-year-old daughter in a school outside their Zip Code.

The Garcias are naturalized citizens. They own a local business. They were separated, during which time Mrs. Garcia moved out and went to live with her father in neighboring Montgomery County, enrolling their child in the local school. Eventually, the couple reconciled. Rather than further disrupting the child's life, they left her in the school to complete the academic year.

This is a school that is under-enrolled. It has less than 10 minority students. The district dispatched a private investigator to follow the parents. Based on this, the Garcia's were arrested. Their offer to make financial restitution to the district was declined. The district attorney vowed to "make an example of them." Their first court appearance occurred this week.

This case has drawn national attention and you will very likely be hearing more about it. To read the rest of Romero’s piece, go to http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/school-495499-education-arrested.html

 

As we mentioned earlier in this letter and in last month’s mailing, in the near future, CTEN will be conducting an internal poll to get your take on various educational issues. Some suggested topics are:

• ·         thoughts on Props. 30 and 32
• ·         the Students Matter case
• ·         armed presence on school campuses
• ·         common core
• ·         the Smarter Balanced assessment

       If you would like to add any suggestions to this list we will consider using them in the poll.

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.  

Sincerely,

Larry Sand

CTEN President

Dear Colleague,

In the last five or so weeks, the country has witnessed several grisly school shootings, most notably the slaughter in Newtown, CT. The anguished national conversation has swung all over the place, from calls for more gun control, to more armed guards, fewer violent video games, more mental health professionals in the schools, etc. Not surprisingly, the teachers unions reacted very quickly; the NEA and AFT issued a rare joint press release (http://www.nea.org/home/53943.htm), the main point of which can be summed up here,

Guns have no place in our schools. Period. We must do everything we can to reduce the possibility of any gunfire in schools, and concentrate on ways to keep all guns off school property and ensure the safety of children and school employees.

…Greater access to mental health services, bullying prevention, and meaningful action on gun control—this is where we need to focus our efforts, not on staggeringly misguided ideas about filling our schools with firearms. Lawmakers at every level of government should dismiss this dangerous idea and instead focus on measures that will create the safe and supportive learning environments our children deserve.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure the unions’ ideas would have made much if any difference in any of the shootings and rebutted the teachers unions here - http://unionwatch.org/thoughts-on-reactions-to-the-sandy-hook-tragedy/  In any event, we at CTEN really want to know your take on how best to avert future tragedies, and will soon conduct an internal poll on this and other questions of import to the teachers of California. (More on this later in the newsletter.)

National School Choice Week, which this year runs from Jan. 27-Feb. 2, provides an unprecedented opportunity to shine a spotlight on the need for effective education options for all children.

Planned by a diverse and nonpartisan coalition of individuals and organizations, National School Choice Week features special events and activities that highlight support for school choice programs and proposals. The effort is a collaboration of more than 200 partner organizations, which each use the week to advance their own messages of educational opportunity while uniting with like-minded organizations across the country.

National School Choice Week believes that parents should be empowered to choose the best educational environments for their children and supports a variety of school choice options -- from encouraging increased access to great public schools, to public charter schools, magnet schools, virtual schools, private schools, homeschooling and more.

For more information, to find an event near you or see if this year’s whistle-stop train tour will roll through your neck of the woods, go here - http://www.schoolchoiceweek.com/

 

Head Start, the much touted preschool program, has been with us now for 48 years. The taxpayers have forked over about $180 billion for the program which is supposed to even the education playing field for economically disadvantaged kids. The only problem is that it doesn’t work according to the government’s own study. Lesli Maxwell in Education Week explains,

In the first phase of the evaluation, a group of children who entered Head Start at age 4 saw benefits from spending one year in the program, including learning vocabulary, letter-word recognition, spelling, color identification, and letter-naming, compared with children of the same age in a control group who didn’t attend Head Start. For children who entered Head Start at age 3, the gains were even greater, demonstrated by their language and literacy skills, as well their skills in learning math, prewriting, and perceptual motor skills.

The second phase of the study showed that those gains had faded considerably by the end of 1st grade, with Head Start children showing an edge only in learning vocabulary over their peers in the control group who had not participated in Head Start.

And now, in this final phase of the study, “there was little evidence of systematic differences in children’s elementary school experiences through 3rd grade, between children provided access to Head Start and their counterparts in the control group,” the researchers wrote in an executive summary.

For more, go here - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/early_years/2012/12/head_start_advantages_mostly_gone_by_third_grade_study_finds.html

We have recently learned about ClickSchooling, an excellent homeschool website which has a wealth of information that regular classroom teachers can also use. The site is constantly updated and is worth visiting frequently.  Or you can sign up and start receiving ClickSchooling’s web-based curriculum ideas. To learn more, go to http://clickschooling.com/

From the National Council on Teacher Quality, we get a report called “No One Benefits” which details the sorry state of our teacher pension systems.

… NCTQ examines how teacher pension systems are failing both teachers and taxpayers. In addition to a 50-state analysis of the funding crisis, we explore the technical and sometimes hidden features of teacher pensions that make them so costly and identify the features of these systems that aren't fair, advantageous or beneficial to all teachers.

We find states nibbling around the edges--in ways that put the squeeze on districts and teachers--rather than summoning the collective will to take on comprehensive reform. But with districts paying an average of $1,200 more per teacher in annual pension contributions (and teachers paying almost $500 more) than just a few years ago, something has got to give.

To read this unsettling report, go to http://www.nctq.org/p/publications/docs/nctq_pension_paper.pdf

A book on education reform has come to our attention that we feel is both informative and highly entertaining. Push Has Come to Shove was written by Steve Perry, the principal of a magnet school in Connecticut. Forceful and opinionated, Dr. Perry may get under your skin at times but he always makes a great case for his beliefs. From Amazon,

Steve Perry gets it. He understands why some parents are panicked about what’s going on in their kids’ classrooms, and how other parents, whose kids supposedly attend the “good” schools, still fear that their children are falling behind. As principal of one of the best performing schools in America – one that sends 100% of its mostly minority students to four-year colleges – Perry delights in proving “the system” wrong.

In this solution-oriented manifesto, Perry covers the full range of issues holding back today’s students. He shows parents and principals how to find great teachers (and get rid of the bad ones), how to make readers out of kids who hate to read, how to make the school curriculum thrilling rather than sleep-inducing, how to conduct an all-important education “home audit,” how to “e-organize” if school boards and administrators aren’t getting the message, how to build a “school of the future,” and much more.

To read reviews and get ordering info, go here - http://www.amazon.com/Push-Has-Come-Shove-Deserve--Even/dp/0307720322/
 
I reported a while back about Eileen Blagden, a principal who lost her job for going to the police about a dangerous situation on her campus. The district bureaucrats, opting for protocol and image over the safety of teachers and kids, tried to shove the incident under the rug. To read the infuriating story of a whistleblower who did the right thing which ultimately led to her unemployment, go here - http://www.city-journal.org/2013/cjc0111ls.html
 
We know that the teachers’ unions claim to speak for all teachers, but they clearly do not. As I mentioned earlier in this letter, CTEN will be conducting an internal poll to get your take on various educational issues. Some suggested topics are:

• ·         thoughts on Props. 30 and 32
• ·         the Students Matter case
• ·         armed presence on school campuses
• ·         common core
• ·         the Smarter Balance assessment

If you would like to add any suggestions to this list we will consider using them in the poll.

CTEN has two Facebook pages. If you have a Facebook account, we urge you to visit ours and let us know your thoughts. Having a dialogue among teachers is an effective way to spread information and experiences and share ideas. Our original Facebook page can be found here http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=125866159932&ref=ts  Our second page, which deals with teacher evaluation and transparency, can be accessed here - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=126900987357825&ref=ts

In any event, if you enjoy these letters and find them informative, please pass them along to your colleagues. We know that there are many independent-minded teachers in California who are looking for alternative sources of information.

Thanks for your continuing support and interest.

Sincerely,

Larry Sand

CTEN President

Dear Colleague,

We first told you about a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles about a year ago that could possibly affect you all.

Recently, some parents in Los Angeles filed a lawsuit that will undoubtedly have ramifications all over the state and perhaps elsewhere. It seems that the “Stull” evaluations we have undergone in our teaching careers have been “incomplete.” According to the Stull Act (Section 44660 of the state’s education code, (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=edc&group=44001-45000&file=44660-44665), part of a teacher’s evaluation is required to include a student achievement component, but this has not happened anywhere in the state.

Earlier this month the suit was tentatively settled. The agreement, awaiting a final okay from the judge and acceptance by the union rank-and-file, is embedded here - http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2012/12/03/29514/la-unified-and-teachers-union-reach-agreement-on-p/    The question is, has anything really changed?  It seems to us that this agreement won’t have much effect at all. Apparently, the Los Angeles Times agrees - http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/09/local/la-me-lausd-eval-20121210

Accessing her inner Joel Klein, American Federation of President Randi Weingarten came out recently in favor of a “rigorous professional exam for K-12 teachers that would serve the same function as the bar exam for lawyers and board certification for doctors.” It certainly is an interesting thought to ponder, but near the end of a Washington Post piece (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/union-proposes-bar-exam-for-teachers/2012/12/01/883f8bc8-3b38-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_print.html ), the union leader seems to expose her real agenda. Teacher, blogger and CTEN board member Darren Miller nails it in a 12/3 post - http://rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com/2012/12/putting-fox-in-charge-of-henhouse.html

In an attempt to rally the troops both the California Teachers Association and the Chicago Teachers Union have come out with videos that push the class warfare theme but, in our opinion, do little to advance the union cause. See if you agree. The CFT video can be found here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S6ZsXrzF8Cc   and the CTU video here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g1eV8EHII5Q

Perhaps the teacher (and any) union story of the year is that Michigan, just last week, became the nation’s 24^th right-to-work state. This means very simply that teachers and other workers can choose whether or not they want to join a union. Contrary to what many believe, collective bargaining will not be affected. Much has been written about this, but perhaps the most eloquent piece came from the Wall Street Journal. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323401904578157453687608428.html?mod=googlenews_wsj) The op-ed makes the case why right-to-work is a good thing. She ends the piece with,

As impressive as all of this evidence is, the best case for right to work is moral: the right of an individual to choose. Union chiefs want to coerce workers to join and pay dues that they then funnel to politicians who protect union power. Right to work breaks this cycle of government-aided monopoly union power for the larger economic good.

If you have a different take, please post your thoughts on the CTEN blog - http://www.ctenteachers.blogspot.com

The National Council on Teacher Quality has come out with a study well worth paying attention to. No One Benefits is a report

…that examines how teacher pension systems are failing both teachers and taxpayers. In addition to a 50-state analysis of the funding crisis, we explore the technical and sometimes hidden features of teacher pensions that make them so costly and identify the features of these systems that aren't fair, advantageous or beneficial to all teachers.

Some of the key findings are:

·         Pension systems are severely underfunded.

·         Most retirement eligibility rules are burdensome and unfair.

·         Costs to teachers and school districts are on the rise.

·         The squeeze is on teachers in numerous other ways.

To learn more, go to http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=c9b11da2ceffae94e1dc196f6&id=d38162825c&e=9dc9a1baf8

The always interesting Education Next yearly survey has just been published in the hard copy of the magazine. (One of the things that makes their polling different from others is that they will ask a question like, “Do you think that teachers are paid enough?” Then they will tell those being polled what teachers make and then repeat the question. Needless to say, the second response is frequently different than the first one.) Highlights from this year’s poll include:

• the Republican tilt of the education views of independents

• the especially high marks that Hispanics give their public schools

• strong support among the general public for using test-score information to hold teachers accountable

• lower confidence in teachers than has previously been reported

• the public’s (and teachers’) growing uneasiness with teachers unions

• the shaky foundations of public support for increased spending

• majority support for a broad range of school choice initiatives.

To read more and access the survey’s results, go to http://educationnext.org/reform-agenda-gains-strength/

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. Also, anyone wishing to donate to CTEN can do so very simply through PayPal - http://www.ctenhome.org/donate.htm  As a non-profit, we exist only through the generosity of others.

It has been another exciting year for CTEN - www.ctenhome.org/ and we look forward to an even more vigorous 2013. We remain grateful for your support and wish you and your families the happiest of holidays. See you in January!

Sincerely,

Larry Sand

CTEN President