Linda Darling-Hammond is well known for her work as an educator, researcher, and author. She began her work as a public school teacher (with a B.A. degree from Yale in 1973) and now holds an Ed.D. from Temple (1978). She has just been named one of the nation’s ten most influential people affecting educational policy and has served as the leader of President Barack Obama’s educational policy transition team.
Dr. Bennett’s ode to the legacy of Governor Daniels suffers from a crucial problem.PRESS RELEASE Media Contact: Stephanie SampleFor Immediate Release (317) 232-6615Monday, December 10, 2012 ssample@doe.in.gov
Full Day Kindergarten Funding More than Doubles
State funding for full day kindergarten increased by $107.9 million for the 2012-2013 school year, reaching a total of $189.8 million. The funds will be distributed December 14 to 338 public school corporations and charter schools for the 79,110 students who enrolled in full day kindergarten programs this year. In 2011-2012, 66,401students were enrolled in full day kindergarten programs, with a total state funding distribution of $81.9 million.
This year’s rapid increase in enrollment and funding is the result of 2012 legislation spearheaded by Governor Mitch Daniels and passed by Indiana lawmakers to guarantee $2,400 per full day kindergarten student. The funding is provided through the Full Day Kindergarten Grant, which was created in 2005 and represents one of the key education policies in the Governor’s first term.
I can't imagine any teacher in America, or the world for that matter, who hasn't spent some time in the past 48 hours thinking about what he or she would do if faced with a deadly attack on his or her students.
The story of Vicki Leigh Soto whether 100% accurate or not, is an indication that she, along with many of her colleagues at Sandy Hook, did whatever was humanly possible to protect the young lives under their care.
The loss of so many young lives is just the latest in a series of similar stories. Our reactions are predictable...anger, sadness, disbelief...and fear. It's a reality in our nation that those who are entrusted with the education of young children are -- and have always been -- entrusted with their safety as well....from the air raid drills I remember growing up with in Chicago during the Cold War, to storm and fire drills...to the current need for lockdowns and "red alerts."
Pundits, politicians, and the usual teacher-bashers are praising the acts of the teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School. How long will it be, however, before teachers are again accused of being failures, of only being in it for the money, of only caring about their pocketbooks, of teaching only because "those who can't, teach?"
How long will it be before more contract rights are taken away from teachers, more public schools are closed because of the nation's failure to deal with poverty (and violence), and more public money is transferred to private schools or corporate charters?
At first...immediately after the attack on children, words failed. Now the words are starting to come out. The words of anger and of anguish. Here are just a few voices...
Let the Nurturers Nurture
In another room in that building, fellow first grade teacher Kaitlin Roig locked her little ones in a bathroom and pulled a bookshelf in front of the door. She told the children to be perfectly quiet. She told the children there were bad guys out there right then and that they needed to wait for the good guys.
“As their teacher, I’m their protector,” the teacher told Diane Sawyer.
“I told the kids I love them,” she said, “and I was so happy they were my students…I said anyone who believed in the power of prayer, we need to pray.” And she didn’t leave out the children who didn’t believe in prayer. She told them to think happy thoughts. Even in a time of extreme stress, her thoughts were on the individual needs of those children.
She said she wanted “I love you” to be one of the last things they heard, because she was sure they were all going to die.
As this teacher contemplated her own death, she didn’t think about what she needed. She thought about what those little ones needed.
Thank you, teachers
This is from a science blog. The authors generally focus on the conflict some people have between science and religion...and evolution topics. Speaking about teachers...
And for this they get to be one of the most denigrated groups of professionals in the United States, targeted every single [expletive deleted] year for one “reform” after another, vouchers from the fundies and charter schools from the liberals, forced by law to take every spark of individuality and interest out of their curricula and then blamed when their students lose interest, resented their pensions and their health care by people who then blame them when their kids turn out to be apathetic.
Once the media horror dies down about Soto and her co-workers’ sacrifices, I guarantee you this: public school grade school teachers will go right back to being the despised class. “Union thugs.” “With three-month vacations.” “Teaching kids their ABCs.” All the idiotic, ill-informed, right wing anti-intellectual myths will rev up again as if nothing had happened. And in the meantime the people the Fox pundits despise will go on teaching kids to read and do math and treat each other with respect.
In other words, it’s not really that much of a jump to imagine all the teachers I know instinctively taking a bullet to protect their kids. To a first approximation, every single one of them does the same thing every waking moment, giving up their lives by increment to give their students a chance at a better life.
Proud To Teach
Jerzy Jazzman reminds us that teachers put their lives on the line...not just in a wealthy Connecticut town, but across the country in many difficult situations. We all walk into our classrooms thinking about how to reach our students, not how to protect them from evil. But, in an emergency, the first thought of most teachers would be for the safety of their students.
Let me, instead, remind all of you a terrible truth:
The last adult who tried to protect the twenty (dear God, twenty...) beautiful children who died yesterday was their teacher.
Twenty sets of parents - maybe single parents, maybe couples, maybe step parents - twenty sets of parents literally put the lives of their children into the hands of a teacher. Those wonderful teachers literally died because they were will willing to take on the awesome responsibility of caring for and protecting twenty wonderful, precious, innocent lives during the time they were in school.
Michelle Rhee Never Misses an Opportunity To Exploit a Tragedy
How does saving a child's life fit in the VAM evaluation process?
Both these teachers are heroes in their own way. Both these teachers did something extraordinary that cannot be measured with a test, with a piece of paper, with an observation. They did something that none of us put in their situation have no idea what we would do.
If their acts (and I am not omitting any other acts of bravery yesterday, just only know of these two thus far), are the ultimate acts, the very definition of effective teachers, what then would have become of them if they were subject to VAM as whether or not they are effective.
Now, I do not know what the new evaluation system in Connecticut consists of. I can only speak for what is coming or might come in NYC. But what these teachers showed is what happens in schools all over the country in one way or another every day. Intangibles that are so subjective there is no way to measure.
For Rhee and her sycophants to call these teachers in Newtown colleagues is not only laughable, but it is worse. It is vulgar. One of the worst vulgarities I have ever seen. These teachers are career teachers, went into teaching to have a career, a lifetime of education children. Rhee and her ilk stand for everything that is opposite of these two teachers belief systems.
A Land Without Guns: How Japan Has Virtually Eliminated Shooting Deaths
This article came out after the shooting in Aurora, Colorado -- July 23, 2012. It's an interesting read. Will we ever reach the point where a dozen shooting deaths in a year is too many for the entire country?
America's gun control laws are the loosest in the developed world and its rate of gun-related homicide is the highest. Of the world's 23 "rich" countries, the U.S. gun-related murder rate is almost 20 times that of the other 22. With almost one privately owned firearm per person, America's ownership rate is the highest in the world; tribal-conflict-torn Yemen is ranked second, with a rate about half of America's.
But what about the country at the other end of the spectrum? What is the role of guns in Japan, the developed world's least firearm-filled nation and perhaps its strictest controller? In 2008, the U.S. had over 12 thousand firearm-related homicides. All of Japan experienced only 11, fewer than were killed at the Aurora shooting alone. And that was a big year: 2006 saw an astounding two, and when that number jumped to 22 in 2007, it became a national scandal. By comparison, also in 2008, 587 Americans were killed just by guns that had discharged accidentally.
Almost no one in Japan owns a gun. Most kinds are illegal, with onerous restrictions on buying and maintaining the few that are allowed. Even the country's infamous, mafia-like Yakuza tend to forgo guns; the few exceptions tend to become big national news stories.
Guns Don't Kill People--Crazy People with Guns Kill People
Read this for an idea of how powerful the gun lobby is in America. We have restrictions for toys and ladders, but not for guns.
Children ages 5 to 14 in America are 13 times as likely to be murdered with guns as children in other industrialized countries, according to David Hemenway, a public health specialist at Harvard who has written an excellent book on gun violence.
So let’s treat firearms rationally as the center of a public health crisis that claims one life every 20 minutes. The United States realistically isn’t going to ban guns, but we can take steps to reduce the carnage.
American schoolchildren are protected by building codes that govern stairways and windows. School buses must meet safety standards, and the bus drivers have to pass tests. Cafeteria food is regulated for safety. The only things we seem lax about are the things most likely to kill.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has five pages of regulations about ladders, while federal authorities shrug at serious curbs on firearms. Ladders kill around 300 Americans a year, and guns 30,000.
We even regulate toy guns, by requiring orange tips — but lawmakers don’t have the gumption to stand up to National Rifle Association extremists and regulate real guns as carefully as we do toys. What do we make of the contrast between heroic teachers who stand up to a gunman and craven, feckless politicians who won’t stand up to the N.R.A.?
As one of my Facebook followers wrote after I posted about the shooting, “It is more difficult to adopt a pet than it is to buy a gun.”
Fischer Explains God’s Inaction
It was only a matter of time before someone said that God didn't protect those children because we "took God out of schools in 1962." One question in response, why did 4 little girls die in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963? Did someone "take God" out of the church?
Those people who use religion in this way are the lowest of the low...stupid, hateful, ignorant people.
And I’m so tired of this “God isn’t allowed in schools” nonsense. Kids pray in school every day and no one stops them. They pray individually and in groups. They gather around the flagpole and pray. There are literally thousands of Christian student groups at public schools all over the nation. They meet for Bible study and prayer sessions before and after school in classrooms and elsewhere on public school campuses. The only thing that can’t be done is the government cannot force a student to pray or read the Bible or be forced to listen to someone else pray.
Snopes: Newtown Rumors
As is typically the case in the wake of tragedy, many rumors began to swirl after the 14 December 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 26 victims dead at that school. We'll try to keep up with some of the more widely-circulated ones...
Thank you Fred.
"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world." -- Fred Rogers~~~
Some reflections on the State Board of Education meeting today.
First, it was encouraging to have a packed Riley room and so many advocates for public education in attendance and speaking up. There will be a day of reckoning.
I'm really not sure, after reflecting on the proceedings exactly what I witnessed today. The agenda was revised then revised again. Public comments were going to be at the end, then they decided at the beginning, but speakers were admonished to keep their remarks to 3 minutes as they had already heard all this before.
Dr. Bennett did introduce Glenda Ritz and allowed her to address the board. She did an excellent job summarizing and illuminating major concerns and made a logical case for tabling REPA 2, and urged the board to do so as the public had had little time to digest the proposed changes and there is no current crisis that would suggest a need to rush.
Then moved on to public comments, and I originally thought this was going to be different than usual. For A-F grading all public comments were against, and they did it anyway. For REPA 2 all former public comments had been against, but this time they did recruit two people to speak in favor. One was a charter school teacher and I don't recall the other. Then the balance of the comments were in opposition. I was surprised and maybe missed it, but expected someone to make the case that one would not go to a surgeon with no training just because they could pass an anatomy test. One would not hire a lawyer or policeman just because they know the law. I did hear the word pedagogy today more in 3 hours than in all the rest of my life. The problem was those tossing the term around either didn't know the definition or had no appreciation for it.
I know if I use names I will miss someone and for that I apologize, but I particularly remember the comments of Phyllis Bush from Fort Wayne who gave views from the perspective of a retired teacher against demeaning the profession by allowing an adjunct license to anyone with a bachelors. And took note specifically of Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer, who spoke eloquently about her concerns from the perspective of a mother of school age children and the practice of hiring teachers with no training would be damaging and dangerous for kids. Thanks to Cathy and Phyllis for making the trip and the work they are undertaking to advocate for students by standing up for public schools.
Following public comment, I was never aware that a motion had been made to accept REPA 2 or the summarized changes presented by the DOE as discussion began. I was stunned that board member Neil Pickett, after complaining that he had heard all the objections before, had a few questions and asked for clarification on a few items. It was amazing that anyone showing such contempt for the concerns of others, because he is so well informed and knows better than the public, could then need clarification or more information.
Board member Tony Walker, suggested that the concern over an adjunct license was not a valid concern because local boards are not required to hire teachers with an adjunct license. But it left me thinking what would happen should local boards continue to feel the financial squeeze and qualified trained teachers such as Math and Science become even more difficult to locate and lure. Wouldn't it be tempting to just hire a few as starting teachers rather then paying what's required to get an experienced highly qualified teacher to relocate? Additionally, I wonder how long it will be before a few children, nieces, nephews, friends of friends etc. who have lost a job or can't find one fresh out of college are invited take a job teaching because anybody can do it!
Board member Mike Pettibone shared concerns and admonished the board that they had not two, but three options. They could vote yes, no, or table the matter. He suggested that they should recognize that morale over public education was at an all time low, and to push further may not be a good idea. He suggested waiting, studying further, and said he would like to have full final version rather than just a DOE summary on the table before he voted yes or no. He then made a motion to table REPA 2, and it died for lack of second.
Jo Blacketor made a crazy comment that we lose a child every 26 seconds, so in her eyes REPA 2 needed to be passed because there is a crisis. I still don't know what she was talking about. Along with Neil Pickett, she was the other board member that continually demonstrated by her exasperation and body language that she had nothing but contempt for anyone that didn't agree with her and she suggested that any opposition was purely political and had nothing to do with what was best for students. Made me wonder what is best for her? Make no mistake what this is really about is equipping takeover and charter schools with the authority to hire non educators to teach at the lowest possible salary so the operators of those schools have more dollars to stick in their pocket. Additionally, by exponentially increasing the hiring pool, they no longer have the challenge of staffing their classrooms with quality qualified people. They truly believe that anyone can teach, so now they can hire, anyone!
I'm still scratching my head over the next thing that happened. Neil Pickett, after getting his foggy notions illuminated and clarified then had an epiphany and decided he could fix the whole thing by offering a few amendments. So he asked to amend REPA 2 by adding a stipulation to the adjunct license requirement, decided that ESL teachers should demonstrate some qualification other than a bachelors and maybe some other minor change or two. I still think what happened next was that someone seconded his amendment, and they voted. I'm thinking they voted on the amendment. Then Dr. Bennett shares that REPA 2 is now passed by a vote of 9-2.
I haven't had parlimentary procedure since high school, but I'm pretty sure the moderator is supposed to have a main motion on the floor before an amendment can be offered, and when an amendment is offered it is to be debated and voted on, then you go back to the main motion and vote on it. It was all very fuzzy too me, but that's the way it got done.
Ok, if you've read this far you can't get away without a task. So click on mpettibone@accs.k12.in.us and thank Mike Pettibone for his support in speaking up for teachers and offering a motion to table REPA 2, and for voting no when whatever it was that was voted on came up for a vote. Then click on cwhicker@hccsc.k12.in.us and thank board member Cari Whicker who also said she had concerns and voted no as well.
The only other two noteworthy takeaways came after REPA 2 had passed and one came from Dan Clark, chairman of the Education Roundtable who mentioned that Indiana's math standards are superior to common core, and that registered a return on my radar. Senator Kruse who chairs the Senate Education Committee has already said he is in favor of revisiting adoption of common core because he has reconsidered, and it is noteworthy because it's not Ms. Ritz making waves and trying to upset the apple cart, but someone inside the DOE is pointing out an issue as well as a high ranking Republican. Maybe there will be more to come on this in the future after Tony takes off to work on his tan?
Additionally there was testimony from some takeover operators and I found it significant that in general terms they shared that all was going well. However they then went on to share that to this point they have only accomplished about 5 percent of what they'd like to accomplish (I don't really know what they are measuring with this percentage) because "these things take time". I wanted to stand up and shout out, DUH! Just left me wondering how much time they will need to achieve the other 95%? I hope it is not in excess of the latitude afforded traditional public schools? These people are supposed to have all the answers and be the miracle workers. It doesn't become them to start bellyaching and complaining about time. We all live by the same Good Ole Mitch's Daylight Savings Time.
That's it. If your still reading, thanks for sticking with it and please share with those interested in the shenanigans on Ohio Street.
Thanks,
Julian
IC 4-22-2-29It would be easy to argue that the final REPA rule “substantially differs from the version” printed in the official record. It changes the authority to approve teacher education programs from the IDOE to the State Board. It cuts the years needed for an administrative license from 5 down to 2 and allows higher education teaching to count for this purpose without defining how much higher education teaching constitutes a year. It changes authority for content area tests for licensure from the IDOE to the State Board. Finally, in the revision made today, the “workplace specialist” pedagogy was required for Adjunct teachers.
Adoption of rules; adoption of revised version of proposed rule
Sec. 29. (b) An agency may not adopt a rule that substantially differs from the version or versions of the proposed rule or rules published in the Indiana Register under section 24 of this chapter, unless it is a logical outgrowth of any proposed rule as supported by any written comments submitted:
(1) during the public comment period; or
(2) by the Indiana economic development corporation under IC 4-22-2.1-6(a), if applicable.
1. The revised draft shifts the authority for approving teacher education programs at universities from the Indiana Department of Education, which would be supervised by the State Superintendent, to the State Board of Education. The votes on approving programs would be in the hands of political appointees on the State Board rather than the elected State Superintendent. This changes the current practice of having IDOE approve programs in line with the rules and would seem to set up the need for an independent staff for the State Board to do this work. This represents an obvious power grab to take authority away from Glenda Ritz and put it in the hands of the State Board appointed by the Governor. Such tactics were predicted by some after Dr. Bennett was defeated in the election, and this seems to be the first movement in the tug of war over Glenda Ritz’s authority.New Licensing Rules in REPA 2 that were Not Changed in Friday’s Revision But Should Have Been
The legal question here is whether the rule can be revised in this major way at the last minute without triggering the need for another round of public hearings. Past practice in my decade of watching State Board rules go through the promulgation process was that if hearings revealed minor changes were needed, those minor changes were made and the rule was passed. If major changes were made, however, the rules were resubmitted for an additional round of hearings. This revision of authority is clearly a major change, and under past practice, a new public hearing on the revised language should be in order. This legal question will throw REPA 2 into the hands of lawyers and lawsuits, which is not good for making public policy which will have the confidence of the public. It seems clear to me that this revision should be subject to additional public hearings.
2. The revised draft cuts the classroom experience required for an administrator license from five years down to two years and would count teaching experience in higher education as classroom experience for qualifying for a K-12 administrative license, either as a building level administrator or as a superintendent. This is a highly controversial subject to current administrators. Reducing the amount of teaching experience required and eliminating the need for experience in K-12 classrooms should be subject to additional public hearings.
3. The revised draft changes the approval of the content area tests required for licensure and the setting of the cut scores for those tests from the Indiana Department of Education to the State Board of Education. As discussed above, this would truncate the authority of Glenda Ritz and would set up a bureaucracy under the State Board of Education. Is this really what the General Assembly intended for the State Board of Education? It has never functioned in this way before. This change would require separate budgetary support for additional staff. Perhaps the new General Assembly will agree and will make that happen in the April budget, but to pass rules now that assume budgetary support seems more than presumptuous . At the very least, a change this big deserves more public hearings.
1. A new provision allows the appointment of “Temporary Building Level Administrators” at the request of a local school board. Under great pressure from Governor Daniels, a license for a “Temporary Superintendent” was allowed in rules passed in 2010 (REPA 1). That plan did not go so far as allowing for temporary principals on the same basis, but REPA 2 does go that far. This concept reverses the reforms of the early 20th century when cronyism and nepotism influenced the appointment of administrators in many local communities. The reform then was to have administrative candidates show that they were qualified in the eyes of impartial licensing agents, the university administrator programs. This provision throws the door open again to local cronyism. This is the kind of local control that no one is asking for. This provision cheapens the credentials of all administrators who have worked hard to pass the existing credential requirements and are now told they weren’t really necessary.What Can You Do About This?
2. New content areas can be added with no new coursework but by passing a test, a test now to be supervised as noted above by the State Board of Education and not by the Indiana Department of Education. The revision revealed Friday removed four areas from eligibility for the “test only” addition: Exceptional Needs, Communication Disorders, Early Childhood, and Elementary Education. These removals are a step in the right direction, but all other content areas are still eligible, from Economics to Physical Education, to be added to a license without any coursework but by simply passing a test.
3. Any applicant holding a Bachelor’s Degree who passes a content test and has a 3.0 GPA in the content area in which the applicant intends to teach can get a 5 year teaching permit, called an “Adjunct Teacher Permit.” This permit allows teachers into the classroom who have had no teacher pedagogy courses. While other parts of REPA require 10 weeks of student teaching instead of 9, the “Adjunct Teacher Permit” allows teachers to teach for five years who have had no student teaching. This is a bad idea which negates all that we have learned about preparing teachers in the past century. I spoke against this provision at the Select Commission hearing in August, and I have attached my comments if you were like to read more details about this huge step backward.
1. Attend Wednesday’s State Board meeting (December 5th, 9am, in the Riley Room of the IDOE, at the corner of Ohio and Capital) and sign up to speak during Public Comments. Anyone who signs in before 9am on the list provided has the right to speak for at least 3 minutes. Sometimes they allow 5 minutes. Say what is on your mind, asking for changes or for a delay to review the major changes. It is important that the State Board members hear from speakers representing many geographic areas of Indiana. Come and speak briefly if you can, remembering that to do so, you must sign in before 9am.I oppose passage of REPA 2 as revised last Friday. I am outraged that so little time has been allowed from Friday afternoon to Wednesday’s vote (5 days) to review these major changes, after IDOE took five months to prepare the revisions. I believe the revision is wrong to shift program approval and the setting of cut scores for teacher testing from the IDOE to the State Board in an obvious political power grab.
2. Emails or call members of the State Board of Education to express your opposition. This decision is in their hands on Wednesday. They have had many messages already, but more would help.
3. Complain loudly to your State Senators and State Representative about what the State Board is trying to do. They can’t control the State Board on this vote, but when the State Board asks for the budget to pay for additional staff, members of the General Assembly will have been informed by you of the problems in this proposal and the overreach of authority by the State Board.
4. Inform the public through the media where possible. Let the public know that the new direction that voters asked for in the election is being ignored by Dr. Bennett and the State Board and that standards for teachers and principals in Indiana classrooms are being lowered.
5. Start petitions directed at State Board members and members of the General Assembly who oversee education, asking them to table these new changes until additional public hearings are held. Time is short for petitions, but it can be an effective way to express outrage to the decision makers involved.