Sun-Times blows it again on teacher planning time

Sun-Times editorial asks: "But since when do salaried professionals watch the clock like hourly workers on an assembly line?" Answer: In Chicago, schools are still organized like factories (remember them?) Teachers still punch in and out.

Today's Sun-Times editorial: When teachers strike so they can teach kids less, something is wrong, blows it again.

It's the second time in a row for S-T, although the last one wasn't an editorial. They just turned over a full page to an anti-public-school harangue by a right-wing think-tanker. But now they're running neck-in-neck with the Tribune's McQueary and Kass for most ill-informed anti-teacher, anti-union pundit awards.

Kass and McQueary I understand. They are committed right-wing, racist, anti-union ideologues who never bother with seeking truth from facts. Remember when McQueary wished a natural disaster would strike Chicago to pave the way for a "rebirth" of the city?

But the S-T (partially owned by the CFL) just seems to be missing the mark out of ignorance, rather than ideology. Today's editorial calls on the CTU to drop their demand for more teacher planning time and get back to work.

While I have been at odds with CTU leaders over their tactics, especially their abusive, personal attacks aimed at Mayor Lightfoot and her supporters (me included), I have been walking the picket line and supportive of the teachers' demands for better pay and working conditions, including full support staffing for every school.

I am hopeful that they can settle this thing, hopefully by today, by agreeing on a fair contract which includes provisions for adequate, teacher-directed planning time.

But for some reason, this demand for more and better teacher planning time has become a minefield and one of the last barriers in the way of a tentative agreement between the board and the union. The S-T editorial, by mischaracterizing the demand, just adds fuel to the fire.

According to S-T editorial,

The CTU has repeatedly insisted on a terrible idea: Giving elementary school teachers an extra 30 minutes of prep time every day, though this would meaning cutting 30 minutes of teaching time every day. Forget it. 

No, it not a terrible idea. It's a great one and one that doesn't have to cut into classroom teaching time. But even if it did, research shows, that's not so bad.

S-T claims,

Chicago once had the shortest school day in the country, which was a national embarrassment. When kids are not in class, they cannot learn. But since 2012, thanks to the effort of many parents, educators and former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Chicago has had a longer school day — something closer to the national average — and we cannot go back.

This is all bullcrap. Chicago didn't have the shortest day in the country and wasn't a "national embarrassment." That was all a fabrication of Rahm Emanuel's who made a longer school day his election campaign mantra so there would be more time for test-prep rather the prep time for teachers and staff.

Rahm even dragged Arne Duncan back to town from Washington to campaign for his longer school day plan. I gagged when I heard Duncan call Chicago's school day, a "disgrace" and a "badge of shame." Duncan had autocratically run the schools here for the seven years previous and with a compliant union leadership behind him, had never implemented a longer school day.

As one observer wrote in a letter to the Sun-Times in 2011,

 A longer school day without structure is like a restaurant serving “lots” of food — if the food is not tasty — who cares if you get a lot of it!

If less seat time for students was a "national embarrassment", why wasn't the Lab School, where Rahm sent his kids, embarrassed? They had a shorter school day and year than did CPS and still do. So do the wealthy suburban districts to the north of us. None of them equate more seat time with more learning.

S-T claims:

Yes, teachers need time to plan. But since when do salaried professionals watch the clock like hourly workers on an assembly line? True professionals — teachers, doctors, college professors, and even journalists — agree on an annual salary and get on with the job.

Have the S-T editors ever been inside a Chicago Public School? If they had, they would know that unlike other professionals, our teachers punch a time clock every day, just like factory workers (remember them?). No, teachers are still not treated as professionals. Real professionals have time to plan, much greater autonomy over their work and the time and wherewithal to collaborate with their colleagues.

Can you imagine a lawyer defending a client with inadequate prep time? Or doctors being told to spend more time in the operating room with less time to prepare? Or either of them punching a clock?

As I said up top, I hope the strike gets settled today and I hope teacher prep time is part of the deal. It shouldn't be that hard to reach an agreement on this.

Professional Debasement

Here's another study that tells us what every teacher already knows. District-run professional development is at best, a boring, irrelevant waste of time and money. At worst, it's downright indictable, as in the SUPES case.

Dejernet Farder, a first grade teacher at Morton School of Excellence on the West Side of Chicago, is part of Educators for Excellence and said, although her school does a pretty good job with development, many of the districtwide trainings are not helpful.

“I’ve been to many that just kind of feel like a powerpoint slide, it’s just an adult talking at us,” Farder said. “There’s no room for discussion, no room for exploration. And just like kids don’t learn that way, adults don’t learn that way either.” -- WBEZ

WEEKEND QUOTABLES -- R.I.P. JOHN GOODLAD

John Goodlad (1920-2014)

John Goodlad on social justice

“It is my expectation that Teacher Education for Democracy and Social Justice will become a rich resource for continuing this multi-layered conversation-from democratic belief to democratic action-that is the hallmark of educational renewal.” -- Forward to Teacher Education for Democracy and Social Justice,

...On more schooling

However, a need to expand the length and breadth of schooling does not necessarily follow from well-founded arguments regarding the critical importance of education. As I have said repeatedly, schooling and education are not synonymous. -- A Place Called School 

...On test & punish

In our system, we receive test scores without having the faintest idea under what conditions students worked. For instance, we heard a lot about how the U.S. ranked so poorly in international tests. Why didn't we go study British Columbia, which is so much like us, and find out what students did to score better than we did? But we just blame the teachers and the schools; we have always used the villain theory. -- Ed Leadership

...On curriculum

 “The division into subjects and periods encourages a segmented rather than an integrated view of knowledge.  Consequently, what students are asked to relate to in schooling becomes increasingly artificial, cut off from the human experiences subject matter is supposed to reflect.” -- A Place Called School (Marian Brady in WaPo)

Prof. Roger Soder 

"John always argued strenuously against test scores as a serious measure of whether we had good schooling. He said what we really needed to talk about was the relationship between schooling and what it takes to maintain a free society." -- L.A. Times

Valerie Strauss, WaPo education writer

Dr. Goodlad’s research and teaching focused in part on curriculum and the “hows” of school teaching and management. But there was always a deeper issue. Teaching is an ethical act, Dr. Goodlad argued, and a critical part of being ethical is having a good sense of who you are. -- "The Passing of a Giant in Education

More unqualified teachers assigned to schools serving poor and minority students

Harvard students are calling for and end to the university's ties with TFA.

MORE STUFF WE ALREADY KNEW…The feds are telling us once again that there's a huge disparity in children’s access to fully qualified and experienced teachers. The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights has begun collecting data on student enrollment by race and ethnicity and teacher characteristics. Their data indicates that 1) black students are more likely to be taught by a first-year teacher than white students, 2) their teachers are more likely to be paid less and 3) they are more likely to have an uncertified or unlicensed teacher.

In states like Pennsylvania, with wild charter school expansion, more than 20% of teachers are unlicensed in the schools with the largest concentration of minority students. In largely white schools, just 0.2% of teachers lack a license.

In southern, so-called right-to-work states like Louisiana, with weakened teacher unions, 20% of classes in the most impoverished schools are taught by teachers who don’t meet the federal definition of “highly qualified” — which generally means they lack a bachelor’s degree, are unlicensed or don’t have a strong academic background in the subject they’re teaching. In the wealthier schools, fewer than 8% of classes are led by a teacher who’s not highly qualified.

As I pointed out in yesterday's post, in response to the Southern Poverty Center's lawsuit, Louisiana has admitted that the state under-served special-needs students and those with disabilities.

OK, interesting, but why and what to do about it? Conservatives and corporate-style reformers are calling for more Vergara-type suits aimed at getting rid of teacher tenure  and collective-bargaining agreements which they claim, serve only to protect incompetent teachers who too often end up assigned to teach the neediest students in the most impoverished schools.

But their argument has been debunked simply by looking at the widening gap between no-union states like Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, on the one hand,  and union-strong states like Massachusetts where tenure rights are protected, on the other. Isn't it obvious that you don't get rid of inequality by eliminating the teaching standards that lead to tenure and other means of attracting keeping experienced, qualified teachers in the profession?

A better approach would target the regulation of the conduct and the expansion of privately-run charters schools which are often allowed and encouraged to hire uncertified teachers and teachers teaching outside of their field.

Another would be to take a long, hard look at corporate-reform groups like Teach for America (TFA) which receive an obscene about of funding from school districts, charter operators and power philanthropists  for placing hundreds of unqualified or under-qualified teachers into schools that serve poor and minority students.

ANOTHER SUGGESTION
USE supplemental Title I funding to disadvantaged schools to boost salaries to attract and retain top teachers. According to a report in POLITICO, in nearly every state, teachers of minority students and students from low-income families earn significantly less than teachers in wealthier schools, even after adjusting for the local cost of living.

More importantly, stop debasing teachers and rating them on the basis of student scores on standardized tests and other test-and-punish "accountability" systems which only discourages teachers from working in the very communities that need them the most.

Finally, we need to look at the inequities in the distribution of qualified teachers as but one component of an apartheid-like, highly-segregated education system that systematically denies poor students and students of color, access to a range of resources including equitable funding, newer and better equipped facilities and learning environments,  a rich curriculum, small class sizes and up-to-date technology.

FINAL NOTE… Pres. Obama tried to push the issue by proposing $300 million in competitive grants to push new strategies for getting high-quality teachers in front of needy kids. But Republicans scrapped the program in the Omnibus budget agreement (which many Democrats then supported and Obama signed into law).

Go figure.

Teachers not teaching in subject areas? Why not?

One of the dumbest teacher-bashing headlines ever, appears on the front page of today's Trib. "Teachers may not know the subjects they cover". Are you kidding me?

According to the Tribune:

The assignment of teachers not properly trained and credentialed to teach a specific course — a practice that has come under fire nationwide — is facilitated by loopholes in state laws and rules as well as by district hiring practices. It has occurred even when applicants with the required qualifications were available, the newspaper found.

Teachers teaching out of their subject area? Well duh! Here's a flash for you. This isn't about incompetent teachers not knowing their subject area as the headline suggests. It's really about educational equity (not mentioned in the Trib article). It's about full and equitable school funding and an end to budget slashing. And it's about sub-contracting and privatization, including non-union, privately-run charters, where certification of teachers isn't always required.

Duncan applauds Vergara decision.

Finally, it's about official CPS policy fostered nationally, by Arne Duncan and his Race To The Top initiative which mandates the firing of thousands of experienced, certified teachers and replacing many of them with unqualified 5-week wonders from TFA. Duncan claims he wants all students to have access to "effective educators." Then he turns around and applauds the Vergara court ruling in California which essentially does away with teacher tenure and job protection and allows thousands of experienced, certified teachers to be replaced by principal and district favoritism (including racial and political favoritism).

Similar policies in Chicago have lead to a sharp decline in the number of African-American teachers. As the district's teaching force grows smaller and whiter, it is also becoming less credentialed. When Rahm and BBB fire hundreds of experienced, certified (even Nationally Board Certified) teachers, including dozens of special-ed, art and music teachers along with librarians and school social counselors and social workers, who do you think is going to perform those roles?

The Trib story continues, quoting Univ. of Penn prof. Richard Ingersoll:

The oft-cited reason officials give is that they can't find or afford educators who have the proper credentials for a particular position, in part because of teacher shortages in certain areas, Ingersoll said. Yet the practice is common even in disciplines in which shortages do not exist and in states with a surplus of teachers for available vacancies, he said. "It might be because of favoritism or poor planning or some principal who wants to get around the rules," Ingersoll said.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Yes, district leaders and principals are guilty of favoritism and poor planning to get around rules. What rules? Well union contracts, seniority and tenure laws to name a few. As collective-bargaining agreements are increasingly trashed, what you end up with is hiring on the cheap and the debasing and pushing-out of talented veteran teachers.

And don't forget dozens of charter schools which often pride themselves on hiring non-certified teachers or having an inexperienced TFAer filling in wherever needed.

Even if IL and other states begin an overhaul of teacher licensing to close the "loopholes" it will just mean that kids in poor communities and resource-starved schools won't have access to the same courses as those in wealthier communities. For example, a recent Sun-Times article reveals that only about half of the 577 schools run by CPS have an arts teacher for every 350 students, while less than a quarter of district-run schools even provide the recommended 120 minutes a week of arts education for every student.

Rahm's plan is to increase the sub-contracting and privatization of arts education as well as other academic areas to companies and non-profits that aren't required to hire certified instructors.

What about Segrue's credentials?

SUGRUE...What really amazes me is that this headline appears on the front page of the very paper that broke the story about Catherine Sugrue, the sister of Ald. Patrick O'Connor, who was approved by schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett as principal of a north side elementary school even after she had failed the principal eligibility assessment twice in the last 12 months, making her ineligible for the job.

Now is Sugrue supposed to enforce strict adherence to credentialing and have her teachers only teaching in their subject area?

She would have to start by firing herself.

Oh, and speaking of CPS credentialing, I almost forgot "Dr." Terrence P. Carter sent to us by Chicago’s New Leaders for New Schools.

Making learning authentic

With attacks mounting on colleges of education, including from Sec. of Ed Arne Duncan, I'm happy to read the occasional story about good young teachers who learned their skills in good teacher training programs. Yesterday's piece in DNAinfo gives us a snapshot of 5th-grade teacher Heather Reed at Chicago's Pritzker Elementary, teaching the way it's supposed to be done. Ms. Reed comes out of DePaul's teacher ed program.

Now in her eighth year of teaching at Pritzker School, Reed said her approach to teaching "relies heavily on making learning authentic to my students" because "if a topic doesn't matter to them, or they can't find something interesting in it, they're not very likely to understand or remember it."

Quotables

Billionaire Rauner

Bruce Rauner

“Capitalism is the greatest poverty-fighting machine in the history of mankind, and I’m proud of the role I’ve played in it,” says Rauner who reported his last year net income at $53 million. -- Sun-Times

Alderman Harry Osterman

"We don't need a charter school. we don't need another high school in Edgewater. We have one." -- DNAinfo

Jitu Brown (KOCO)

"That is not a choice. This [closing of Dyett H.S.] is displacement by force. This historic neighborhood, we feel, is being gutted." -- DNAinfo

Diane Ravitch

 It seems to me that we are thinking about children, teachers, and schools the same way we think about sports teams. In every league, there are winners and losers. But if we think about education as a culture that is very different from that of a competitive sports league, then the picture and the questions change. -- Huffington

NCTQ 'study' of teacher prep programs is good for something...

Darling-Hammond

Yesterday, on my Schooling in the Ownership Society blog, I wrote a sharply critical review of the new so-called "study" by NCTQ, of the nation's ed schools. The group, led by a gaggle of corporate-reform types, follows Arne Duncan's lead in lambasting nearly all teacher preparation programs, labeling them as "an industry of mediocrity," that churns out teachers ill-prepared to work in elementary and high-school classrooms.

Today, after reading  Linda Darling-Hammond's response to the NCTQ report in the Washington Post, I feel I'm on solid ground. Linda, the nation's leading voice on teacher preparation, calls the NCTQ teacher prep ratings, "nonsense."

It is clear as reports come in from programs that NCTQ staff made serious mistakes in its reviews of nearly every institution.  Because they refused to check the data – or even share it – with institutions ahead of time, they published badly flawed information without the fundamental concerns for accuracy that any serious research enterprise would insist upon.

What can learn about teacher education quality from the NCTQ report? “Not much”, says LDH. Without reliable data related to what programs and their candidates actually do, the study is not useful for driving improvement.

Well, then what is it good for? There is a toilet paper shortage due to budget cuts in CPS schools.