By Barbara D. Parks-Lee, Ph.D., CF, NBCT (ret.), NNPA ESSA Awareness Campaign
Have you ever felt frustrated and ill-equipped to meet the needs of the students in your classroom as well as the dictates of those who have never been teachers in a classroom?
Sometimes, we teachers feel like there is too much to do and not enough time or resources to do what needs to be done well. Standardized testing frenzy, No Child Left Behind, Common Core Curriculum, STEM curriculum, professional development relegated to one day make-‘n’-take or lecture sessions, and demands from school boards, legislators, and the business community all may contribute to teacher frustration, burn-out, and being ROJ (retired on the job).
Well, how can we feel more professional and less like factory workers producing widgets? First, we must clarify our mission. Students are not widgets. There can be no reject bins for human beings with different needs and varied learning intelligence!
Secondly, we must reach our students before we can teach them. By reach I mean to be willing to acknowledge cultural and personal idiosyncrasies and to be friendly, fair, and flexible. Not everyone learns—or teaches—the same way. Being friendly involves knowing our students’ names and greeting them as they enter our classrooms.
It also involves dressing professionally as a means of demonstrating personal and student respect. There are three B’s no student should ever see on a teacher: no bosoms, no belly buttons, and no backsides. Students need a professional appearance. They form their own perceptions the first time they meet us, and we do not get a second chance to make a good first impression.
The culture of our classroom community must be one of acceptance, rigor, and high standards, for our students will either stretch or stagnate according to our expectations of them. Teachers must not only have a lesson plan A and a back-up plan B but also a back-up for the back-up in order to take advantage of any teachable moment.
If we do not have a plan for our students, they will most certainly have plans for us! I assure you, their plans will make our lives miserable and learning and teaching almost impossible.
Fairness involves demanding standards for which everyone is held accountable. Certain rules must be observed. For instance, no one can be allowed to ridicule, to bully, or to be disrespectful or disparaging of anyone’s personal appearance, answers, questions, or opinions. We, as teachers, must take control of our classrooms from the first day until the last.
When we wish not to be perceived as factory workers producing widgets, we must acknowledge that our calling is a combination of science, art, and craft. TEACHING IS PLAIN HARD WORK!
Our diverse students are real human beings with real needs and varied skills and talents. We must take the challenge of our profession and equip ourselves with the content knowledge and the pedagogy skills in order to deliver what our students must have. As we teach, we must also remember that these same students may have to serve us or to teach our children or grandchildren at some point after they leave us.
As teachers serving humans, we cannot allow them or ourselves to be treated any way except as we would want our own children and family members to be treated. We must be actively vocal as we present ourselves as advocates for the teaching and learning process.
Raise your hand if you weresick and tired but now resolveto be well and full of energy as you go forward.
By Lynette Monroe (Program Assistant, NNPA ESSA Public Awareness Campaign)
Jarren Small, a 28 year-old, Missouri City native and community activist, stopped asking, “Why not?” and became the answer that he was looking for when he launched the non-profit organization LegendsDoLive.
In 2014, without any major partners, Small founded LegendsDoLive, an organization committed to funding and coordinating community-based programs for disadvantaged youth.
As a charismatic adolescent, Small was active in various extracurricular activities. He attended Hightower High School, played basketball and earned awards through the Media and Broadcasting Academy. In 2008, Jarren became an Eagle Scout. He credits his accomplishments to the positive impact of his parents’ consistent engagement and strategic exposure to diverse environments.
Shrugging his shoulders, Small downplayed his impressive list of academic and extracurricular accolades.
“Yeah, I guess I was kind of a cool kid in certain aspects,” Small said.
Ironically, Small’s many accomplishments were nearly overshadowed by his difficulty with standardized testing.
“Everyone thought I had it all together, but I failed to pass the math portion of the state standardized test,” called the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS), Small said. “I passed the Math TAKS by one point—my fourth time. I felt like [God] was giving me one final chance to get it together.”
After high school, Small attended Prairie View A & M University in Prairie View, Texas, an hour’s drive to northwest of Missouri City.
“I did very well at [Prairie View A & M University],” Small said. “It was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life.”
And once again, Small was quite the standout student. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in mass communication with a minor in marketing. As an undergraduate, he led a movement to bring the first panther statue to campus in reverence of the university’s founding fathers. Small served as the student government association president from 2011 to 2012.
Small’s collegiate career was a stark contrast to the challenges he had faced just a few years earlier as a graduating senior.
When asked if his difficulty with testing was a defining moment, Small responded: “I feel like my entire life has led to this point, like everything I’ve been through and all the experiences I’ve had have been preparation for what I am doing right now.”
Fortunately, for other future leaders like Jarren Small, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), national education law signed by President Barack Obama, seeks to alleviate the burden of ineffective testing. ESSA gives states more flexibility to decide what type of assessments they issue. ESSA also allows states to develop “innovative” assessments or to use other nationally recognized tests like the SAT or ACT.
Small said that children are the nucleus of communities and that the success of our schools is the key to community sustainability.
Smiling, Small explained that, “Kids are not the future; they are the right now.”
The development of positive resources to support children offers a tangible solution to many concerns facing inner-city communities, Small said.
Small emphasized that his methods and approach to education are resources that all students can benefit from.
Likewise, ESSA requires states to prioritize stakeholder engagement in an attempt to better meet the educational needs of local populations in lieu of the national one-size-fits all academic standards promoted by its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush.
Currently, LegendsDoLive works primarily with high school students. This year, their widely anticipated annual “Senior Fest” included an all-star basketball game between Hightower High School and Ridge Point High School, followed by an empowerment forum and concert.
“This concert is happening during school. Something like this has never been done before,” Small explained, as he expounded on the innovation required to engage today’s youth.”
More than 600 students participated in the event. Small said getting students to participate in positive, educational events is not as difficult, as some people might think.
“It’s easy,” Small explained. “You just have to listen to them and then give them what they ask for.”
Small said that he’s applying this same attitude to his newest education focus: literacy. In May, LegendsDoLive launched a hip-hop curriculum called “Reading With a Rapper” to promote reading and writing proficiency. This program is a response to Small’s educational approach of listening to children first and then responding to their needs.
Let’s hope that Small’s enthusiasm about innovative approaches to education radiates throughout the nation as it has in the Houston-metropolitan area.
For more information about the Every Student Succeeds Act, visit nnpa.org/essa.
Lynette Monroe is the program assistant for the NNPA’s Every Student Succeeds Act Public Awareness Campaign and a master’s student at Howard University. Her research areas are public policy and national development. Follow Lynette on Twitter @_monroedoctrine.
Add one more to the long list of recent DC public education scandals* in the era of education ‘reform’: DC’s NAEP** test scores are increasing at a lower rate now (after the elected school board was abolished in 2007) than they were in the decade before that.
This is true in every single subgroup I looked at: Blacks, Hispanics, Whites, 4th graders, 8th graders, in reading, and in math.
Forget what you’ve heard about DC being the fastest-growing school district. Our NAEP scores were going up faster before our first Chancellor, Michelle Rhee, was appointed than they have been doing since that date.
Last week, the 2017 NAEP results were announced at the National Press Club building here on 14th Street NW, and I went in person to see and compare the results of 10 years of education ‘reform’ after 2007 with the previous decade. When I and others used the NAEP database and separated out average scale scores for black, Hispanic, and white students in DC, at the 4th and 8th grade levels, in both reading and math, even I was shocked:
In every single one of these twelve sub-groups, the rate of change in scores was WORSE (i.e., lower) after 2007 (when the chancellors took over) than it was before that date (when we still had an elected school board).
I published the raw data, taken from the NAEP database, as well as graphs and short analyses, on my blog, (gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com) which you can inspect if you like. I will give you two examples:
In the year 2000, the first year for which I had comparable data, that group got an average scale score of 188 (on a scale of 0 – 500). In the year 2007, the last year under the elected school board, their average scale score was 209, which is an increase of 21 points in 7 years, for an average increase of 3.0 points per year, pre-‘reform’.
After a decade of ‘reform’ DC’s black fourth grade students ended up earning an average scale score of 224, which is an increase of 15 points over 10 years. That works out to an average growth of 1.5 points per year, under direct mayoral control.
So, in other words, Hispanic fourth graders in DC made twice the rate of progress on the math NAEP under the elected school board than they did under Chancellors Rhee, Henderson, and Wilson.
In 1998, the first year for which I had data, Hispanic 8th graders in DC got an average scale score of 246 (again on a scale of 0-500). In 2007, which is the last year under the elected board of education, they earned an average scale score of 249, which is an increase of only 3 points.
However, in 2017, their counterparts received an average scale score of 242. Yes, the score went DOWN by 7 points.
So, under the elected board of education, the scores for 8th grade Latinx students went up a little bit. But under direct mayoral control and education ‘reform’, their scores actually dropped.
That’s only two examples. There are actually twelve such subgroups (3 ethnicities, times 2 grade levels, times 2 subjects), and in every single case progress was worse after 2007 than it was beforehand.
*For many years, DC officials and the editorial board of the Washington Post have been bragging that the educational ‘reforms’ enacted under Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her successors have made DCPS the fastest-improving school district in the entire nation. (See https://wapo.st/2qPRSGw or https://wapo.st/2qJn7Dh for just two examples.)
It didn’t matter how many lies Chancellor Rhee told about her own mythical successes in a privately run school in Baltimore (see https://wapo.st/2K28Vgy ). She also got away with falsehoods about the necessity of firing hundreds of teachers mid-year for allegedly being sexual predators or abusers of children (see https://wapo.st/2qNGxqB ); there were always acolytes like Richard Whitmire willing to cheer her on publicly (see https://wapo.st/2HC0zOj ), even though the charges were false.
A lot of stories about widespread fraud in the District of Columbia public school system have hit the front pages recently. Examples:
Teachers and administrators were pressured to give passing grades and diplomas to students who missed so much school (and did so little work) that they were ineligible to pass – roughly one-third of last year’s graduating class. (see https://bit.ly/2ngmemi ) You may recall that the rising official (but fake) high school graduation rate in Washington was a used as a sign that the reforms under direct mayoral control of education had led to dramatic improvements in education here.
Schools pretended that their out-of-school suspension rates had been dropping, when in actual fact, they simply were suspending students without recording those actions in the system. (see https://wapo.st/2HhbARS )
Less than half of the 2018 senior class is on track to graduate because of truancy, failed classes, and the like. ( see https://bit.ly/2K5DFx9 )
High-ranking city officials, up to and including the Chancellor himself, cheated the system by having their own children bypass long waiting lists and get admitted to favored schools. (see https://wapo.st/2Hk3HLi )
A major scandal in 2011 about adults erasing and changing student answer sheets on the DC-CAS test at many schools in DC in order to earn bonuses and promotions was unfortunately swept under the rug. (see https://bit.ly/2HR4c0q )
About those “public” charter schools that were going to do such a miraculous job in educating low-income black or brown children that DCPS teachers supposedly refused to teach? Well, at least forty-six of those charter schools (yes, 46!) have been closed down so far, either for theft, poor performance on tests, low enrollment, or other problems. (see https://bit.ly/2JcxIx9 ).
NAEP, or the National Assessment of Educational Progress, is given about every two years to a carefully chosen representative sample of students all over the USA. It has a searchable database that anybody with a little bit of persistence can learn to use: https://bit.ly/2F5LHlS .
I did not do any comparable measurements for Asian-Americans or Native Americans or other such ethnic/racial groups because their populations in DC are so small that in most years, NAEP doesn’t report any data at all for them.
In the past, I did not find big differences between the scores of boys and girls, so I didn’t bother looking this time.
Other categories I could have looked at, but didn’t, include: special education students; students whose first language isn’t English; economically disadvantaged students; the various percentiles; and those just in DCPS versus all students in DC versus charter school students. Feel free to do so, and report what you find!
My reason for not including figures separated out for only DCPS, and only DC Charter Schools, is that NAEP didn’t provide that data before about 2011. I also figured that the charter schools and the regular public schools, together, are in fact the de-facto public education system that has grown under both the formerly elected school board and the current mayoral system, so it was best to combine the two together.
I would like to thank Mary Levy for compiling lots of data about education in DC, and Matthew Frumin for pointing out these trends. I would also like to thank many DC students, parents, and teachers (current or otherwise) who have told me their stories.
Just having finished helping to judge the first three rounds of the DC State-Level MathCounts competition, I have some sad news. Unless I missed one or two kids, it seemed that NOT A SINGLE STUDENT FROM ANY DC PUBLIC OR CHARTER SCHOOL PARTICIPATED.
Not one that I noticed, and I was in the judging room where all the answer sheets were handed in, and I and some engineers and mathematicians had volunteered to come in and score the answers.*
In past years, for example, when I was a math teacher and MathCounts coach at Alice Deal JHS/MS, the public schools often dominated the competitions. It wasn’t just my own teams, though — many students from other public schools, and later on, from DC’s charter schools, participated. (Many years, my team beat all of the others. Sometimes we didn’t, but we were always quite competitive, and I have a lot of trophies.)
While a few public or charter schools did field full or partial teams on the previous “chapter” level of competition last month, this time, at the “state” level (unless I missed one or two), I am sad to report that there were none at all. (Including Deal. =-{ )
That’s what ten years of Education ‘Reform’ has brought to DC public and charter schools.
there is a massive turnover of teachers and school administrators – a revolving door as enormous percentages of teachers break down and quit mid-year (in both public and charter schools);
these frauds are probably also true at some or all of charter schools, but nobody is investigating them at all because they don’t have to share data and the ‘state’ agency hides what they do get;
DC is still attempting to implement a developmentally-inappropriate “common core” curriculum funded by Bill Gates and written by a handful of know-it-alls who had never taught;
they implemented a now-many-times-discredited“value-added method” of determining the supposed worth of teachers and administrators, and used that to terminate many of them;
they also closed dozens of public schools in poor, black neighborhoods.
Yes, fourth-grade NAEP national math and reading scores have continued to rise – but they were rising at just about that exact same rate from 2000 through 2007, that is to say, BEFORE mayoral control of schools and the appointment of that mistress of lies, fraud, and false accusations: Michelle Rhee.
So what I saw today at the DC ‘state’-wide competition is just one example of how to destroy public education.
When we will we go back to having an elected school board, and begin having a rational, integrated, high-quality public educational system in DC?
* Fortunately, we didn’t have to produce the answers ourselves! Those questions are really HARD! We adults, all mathematically quite proficient, had fun trying to solve a few of them when we had some down time — and marveled at the idea of sixth, seventh, or eighth graders solving them at all! (If you are curious, you can see previous year’s MathCounts questions here.)
THE MORNING CALL — The standardized tests that Pennsylvania students take every year aren’t going away, but they will count less under a new accountability system the state is developing.
On Wednesday, the state Department of Education outlined indicators it is recommending for use in the Future Ready PA Index, which would replace the School Performance Profile scores. The new system is expected to be in place in fall 2018.
When Gov. Tom Wolf took office, he tasked the Department of Education with coming up with a more holistic approach to measuring school proficiency and growth. In December, the state announced plans to replace the SPP with Future Ready PA Index.
The SPP scores heavily depend on the results of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment and Keystone exams. Students in grades three through eight take the PSSAs, while high school students take the Keystones in biology, literature and algebra at the end of each course.
But in talking with stakeholders across Pennsylvania, the state heard that growth-measure scores are more meaningful in determining a school’s success than just pure achievement scores, Stem said.
Read the full story and watch a video interview here:
Colorado is asking for more time to figure out how to meet federal requirements for giving students standardized tests while respecting the rights of parents who don’t want their children to take them.
In a letter Thursday, Commissioner Katy Anthes told the federal government that the state needs until October to reconsider how Colorado holds schools and districts accountable when they fail to meet federal requirements for student participation on state tests.
The federal education department earlier this month told state officials that Colorado’s approach of not penalizing schools that fall below the 95 percent participation threshold doesn’t align with the nation’s updated education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act.
The federal pushback came as part of the department’s formal review of states’ education plans that detail how they will comply with the new law. Colorado was one of the first states to submit its plan.
The reviews are being watched for clues of how the federal department under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos interprets a law that was intended to shift more decision-making to states.
Colorado was required to by Thursday either submit new language in its federally required education plan or ask for an extension. Officials chose the later.
“Because our board has a strong commitment to Colorado’s parental opt-out rights, it will need to carefully consider how best to address your concerns without designing a system that will be perceived by parents and educators as punitive,” Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes said in the letter. “We are optimistic that the various interests here can be addressed in a manner that complies with ESSA and is in the best interest of Colorado students, parents, and educators.”
Colorado’s response follows a trip by one state official to Washington, D.C., to discuss the issue in person.
Alyssa Pearson, Colorado’s associate commissioner for accountability and performance, flew to the Capital Aug. 18 in an effort to better understand what changes the federal department is seeking from Colorado.
Pearson, in an interview with Chalkbeat, said the department made it clear: The first 5 percent of students at a school who do not take the test get a pass. However, any student who skips the tests beyond that line must be counted as non-proficient.
So if 10 percent of kids at a school opt out, the first 5 percent won’t count against a school. The remaining 5 percent must count as non-proficient, dragging down the school’s scores.
Pearson said federal officials will require Colorado to use this number it its school quality ratings. It can’t just be a number it submits to the U.S. education department and then ignores.
Schools and districts with large numbers of students who are labeled as non-proficient on state tests are likely to receive low quality ratings from the states. Schools that receive the lowest quality ratings for five years in a row are targeted for state intervention.
In Colorado, the largest volume of opt-outs involve mostly white and middle- and upper-class students at schools with traditionally high quality ratings.
“While we don’t know how the schools are performing today,” Pearson said, “historically schools with parental refusal rates have performed pretty well in the past.”
Before 2015 when the opt-out movement gained traction, nearly all Colorado schools met the federal testing requirement.
The prescribed changes to how Colorado calculates how many students are meeting proficiency could lead to more schools being identified as low-performing — even if they don’t need help.
“We raised that issue,” Pearson said. She added that federal officials recognized the dilemma and offered suggestions on how the state can separate schools with truly low academic performance and those with artificially deflated scores.
State officials will present a variety of options to the State Board of Education in September, Pearson said.
Those options include asking state lawmakers to rewrite the state’s school accountability system to fully comply with federal law, or running two accountability systems — one that follows state law and the other that follows federal law.
The board must sign off on any policy changes included in the state’s education plan. A decision is expected in October.
SBOE OSSE’s ESSA Draft Proposal
102 5th St. NE, WDC 20002
Dear members of DC’s state board of education,
I am Valerie Jablow, a DCPS parent. I am sending you all this via email because it is the only way I can get timely feedback to you on OSSE’s response to your recommendations on ESSA. I urge you to vote NO on OSSE’s ESSA proposal.
Yesterday afternoon, I found out about OSSE’s response to public comment on its ESSA draft proposal.
I didn’t get to read that response until this morning, while eating breakfast and trying to get my kids out the door.
Then I read that OSSE would promulgate a new draft plan by the end of today, which I have not yet seen.
How do you keep up?
Perhaps more importantly, how does any parent, teacher, or administrator keep up?
Back in November, I and other parents of public school students in DC testified before you about the horrible effect of a test-heavy emphasis in accountability on students and schools in DC.
In February, when the superintendent of OSSE and her chief of staff held a public meeting in Ward 6 on ESSA, they touted the feedback they had already received in 50 meetings with 100 different groups. And they repeatedly said that teachers, principals, and parents wanted the heavy-test emphasis of its draft proposal.
Jaws dropped in the room that night. Who were those people who wanted testing to dominate accountability? Certainly not anyone we knew in our schools!
Thus, several weeks ago I made a FOIA request of OSSE, for a list of meetings, participants, and feedback received in all its meetings on ESSA from such groups and individuals from January 1, 2016 through the end of February 2017.
Right now, the best evidence we have for such feedback is OSSE’s response document from yesterday—in which “many” and “some” commenters are said to have said something, all of which is not necessarily reflected in what OSSE is now proposing to do with ESSA!
Thus, I hope that my FOIA request will allow me and others to find out what the Chesapeake Bay Foundation had to say about ESSA in DC public schools—as well as the other organizations whose staff met with OSSE on ESSA implementation for more than a YEAR, while all of us DC citizens (who, unlike the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, actually have children and/or taxes in this game) had only 33 days to comment on the proposal. (Which is three days more than the federal minimum of 30 days for public comment–and a few days more than the DCPS chancellor got.)
Perhaps the most radical thing in OSSE’s draft calls for schools being taken over by other operators when their test scores do not go up after 4 years (p. 59).
As you know, even with the changes it is proposing, OSSE is still placing a heavy emphasis on test scores and attendance. At the same time, there is nothing in OSSE’s accountability framework that penalizes schools whatsoever for high suspension and expulsion rates.
So what is to stop a school from suspending and expelling its way into higher attendance rates or higher test scores?
Nothing.
And where will those students go when they are expelled or encouraged to leave?
To their by right schools!
So what does OSSE’s proposal do to take this differential into account and its effect on the scores of receiving schools?
Nothing.
This is what you are voting for with OSSE’s policy here.
As you know, our city creates new charter schools whenever and wherever, without any regard for the effect on existing schools, neighborhoods, or unfilled seats.
As a result, DCPS is losing about 1% per year of “marketshare,” because growth in DC public school seats does not match growth of overall enrollments or of our student population. Just next week, for instance, the charter board will hear comments on proposals by two charter operators—KIPP DC and DC Prep—to create five new schools and 4000 new seats. The board will vote on those proposals in April. The board has also received applications for eight new charter schools beyond that, which it will vote on in May.
At the same time that the charter board is considering 13 (!) new schools, DC has more than 10,000 unfilled seats at existing public schools. (Data from 21st Century School Fund, using current audited enrollment numbers and MFP.)
So what will happen ten years from now, when these ESSA rules are up for re-assessment?
Absent any change from city leaders in our public school governance, DCPS will certainly be the smallest school system. This means more DCPS closures.
And absent any change in this OSSE policy, it means that some schools in DCPS will just become a place for kids off’ed from other schools, as those other schools chase better attendance and higher test scores—and thus create an even faster metric by which receiving DCPS schools will be taken over or closed altogether, because there is no accounting for this dynamic whatsoever in this policy or any city governance of our public schools.
This is what you are voting for with OSSE’s policy here.
One of the aims of OSSE’s ESSA policy is to provide a way to compare schools fairly and to have a common system of accountability between them. But this betrays a facile notion of how our schools actually work.
As you know, one school system in our city is bound to uphold a RIGHT to education. That is DCPS. The other system, charter schools, is not bound to uphold that RIGHT. That immediately differentiates the two sectors in a way that cannot be compared. It doesn’t mean one is better than the other—it simply means that they are different by design. Why wouldn’t you have a system of accountability that takes that difference into account instead of actively denying it even exists?
Moreover, there is nothing common between those two sectors in expulsion rules; suspension rules; facilities requirements; curricula; teacher training; and teacher retention rates—all of which are important not only to student achievement, but also in accountability to the public. OSSE’s proposal doesn’t acknowledge any of this.
In fact, OSSE has made some rather huge assumptions in its draft proposal, which distort true accountability.
To wit:
That student satisfaction = school success = higher attendance rates. (See p. 5 of the response document.) What evidence is given to show attendance is 100% (or some other percentage) in the control of each school? What evidence is given to show that student satisfaction means the school is “successful” and that students will attend at higher rates? Indeed, what is “success” in this scheme if not mainly high test scores?
That one of the purposes of the new rating system is to facilitate school choice by parents. This is perhaps the most grotesque distortion of ESSA possible. The point of school accountability is not to facilitate school choice, but to help students and to help schools help them. What assurance is here that parents and teachers will be able to use these test results and other criteria measured to help students learn better, except only in a punitive way, to avoid censure or takeover? Facilitating school choice should be the LAST thing that anyone is concerned about when it comes to helping our kids learn!
These assumptions and distortions are what you are voting for with OSSE’s policy here.
Finally, a note about compromise.
OSSE characterized its response yesterday to you and the public as a compromise.
But you, collectively, put together ten recommendations on OSSE’s draft proposal as a compromise before that—most of which have not even made it into OSSE’s response document.
So how much of a compromise was OSSE’s response yesterday—and for whom is it a compromise?
Here is a more concrete example:
OSSE’s rationale for not measuring high school growth is that different groups of high school students take different PARCC math tests and that it distorts scoring when those scores are combined.
OK. But right now, OSSE groups together middle school accelerated math test scores with regular math test scores and blithely spits out a number for both achievement and growth. That practice does indeed distort test scores—but OSSE has determined that’s OK with middle schools.
What sort of compromise is this?
I can attest that OSSE’s practice with those middle school scores has actively hurt my DCPS middle school, because a relatively large portion of its student body takes those accelerated math tests—whereas most other middle schools avoid those tests or have only a small fraction of their students take them.
So, instead of giving up on measuring high school growth or accurate middle school reporting, how about reporting data more responsibly (i.e., separate out results for accelerated tests)–or just using a different measure of math achievement than PARCC?
For all these reasons, I ask you to please not accept what OSSE is offering now. It is only a compromise of our ability to have rich, nuanced, and accurate assessments, which we desperately need and are not getting.
Your voting NO to OSSE’s proposal will give all of us time to make a policy of accountability that will reflect well on each school and every child. Thank you.
Educators in the Sacramento Unified School District have been working without a contract since last December. After 12 bargaining sessions, the Sacramento City Teachers Association has yet to reach common ground with the district. They’ve had one big success on the issue of testing — going forward, and even as bargaining continues, there will be no testing in the district beyond what is mandated by the state or federal government. But the list of what they want to accomplish for their students is long and the bargaining team says its determined to win everything they have proposed to improve student learning conditions.
“Our goal is to make Sacramento a “the destination district” that families want their kids to attend,” says Nikki Milevsky, President of the Sacramento City Teachers Association. “We are on the verge my making huge improvements to our schools and forcing the district to prioritize our students.”
In addition to some bread and butter issues related to professional development and salary, the bulk of the bargaining team proposals are focused on students and include lowering class sizes, making arts, music, and physical education available to all students in the district, allowing for more inclusionary practices for students with disabilities, increasing the number of school nurses, psychologists, and other program specialists consistent with national standards, developing an early intervention program, and implementing a resourced, bottom-up restorative practices culture throughout Sacramento’s public schools.
The district has so far rejected every single proposal.
“We are ready to stand united with students, community and educators in Sacramento and throughout the region,” Milevsky said. At their last bargaining meeting January 30, SCTA hosted NEA Secretary-Treasurer, Princess Moss and a delegation of four local presidents and from Reynolds, OR, Beaverton, OR, Salem-Kaiser, OR, and Anchorage, AK, in a show of union strength and solidarity.
“We wanted to show the district that we have the strength and numbers of the entire NEA behind us and the whole country is watching,” Milevsky says.
A Different Dynamic
Over the course of the bargaining campaign, SCTA worked hard to engage more community and union members in the process and to make sure all stakeholders had a voice and were able to advance their concerns. The bargaining team grew from 10 members to over 50 members present at the bargaining table. Now educators who have questions about the campaign can walk down the hall to ask the team member in their school rather than having to call the SCTA office. Also, if a specific issue comes up, there is someone on the bargaining team present to speak to the issue, instead of delaying negotiations or relying on the district’s misrepresentation.
“With the new bargaining team it’s a different dynamic – not only is the process now more transparent with more communication through widely dispersed team members, the team itself is also far more diverse in terms of age, race and gender.” Milevsky says.
It’s also more diverse in terms of job categories, allowing more voices to be heard, like that of Nafeesah Young is an early career school psychologist who now sits on the SCTA bargaining team. The concerns she and other eight-hour employees like counselors and social workers deal with weren’t specifically addressed in the last contract, so she decided to speak up.
“As a school psychologist, you often feel like the needs of the teachers overshadow the needs of other members in the union because, let’s face it, they have the numbers,” Young says. “I decided to join the bargaining unit because I felt working for the change I want to see is more beneficial than complaining at a roundtable with a group of colleagues. I’m hopeful that my participation in the bargaining unit, and the SCTA’s willingness to present all our concerns, will show the district that psychologists are more than test givers and report writers.”
Young believes everyone should get involved in the process by supporting the bargaining team and by supporting the union. Not everyone has the right, she says, and those who do are fortunate to have a voice.
“If you don’t participate in your local association, you won’t have a voice and decisions will be made without you,” Young says. “Participation in bargaining and your local union is not something that should be taken for granted, whether you’re a first year educator or knocking on the door to retirement. Things in this country are changing and it is important for us to maintain our unions, keep them strong, and get involved.”
Proposition 55
For the first time, their bargaining team also includes community members, like Carl Pinkston, from the Black Parallel School Board. Pinkston has a long history as a local Sacramento community activist and understands the value of deep engagement between local unions and the community. “When we are talking to one another we are able to identify and strategize how to address key issues affecting our students, instead of being played against one another.”
According to Milevsky, the district has been pushing back on SCTA’s proposals based on economics, but he says the facts don’t back up their position. The Sacramento City Unified School District is in the best financial position it has ever been in its entire history, she says. For starters, SCTA members helped pass Proposition 55, a ballot proposition to continue taxing the rich at a higher rate to raise billions of dollars for public schools and health care. Also, in its approved budget for 2016-17, the district began the fiscal year with $97 million total in its reserve fund, which is $48 million more than originally projected. The district ended the 2015-16 year spending about $35 million less than projected in their final budget, while students attended classes often without a fully credentialed teacher leading instruction.
If no progress is made by April, SCTA and its members are prepared to strike – for only the third time since the union was founded in 1921.
“The whole community is prepared to move into action” says Milevsky. “Our city is the state capital of California, the world’s sixth largest economy, and is one of the most diverse cities in the country; Sacramento must become the destination district for California.”
Educators in the Sacramento Unified School District have been working without a contract since last December. After 12 bargaining sessions, the