Joe Williams' Blog
February 11, 2010
More Houston Teachers Removed For Criminal Misconduct Than Poor Teaching
Yet More Than 100,000 HISD Students Not Reading At Grade Level
Will Tonight's School Board Action Save Public Education In Texas' Largest District?
On January 12, in a widely publicized speech, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten called for "A New Path Forward" for the nation's second largest teachers union - one that would embrace more rigorous systems of teacher evaluation that would "include student outcomes."
We don't question President Weingarten's intent or sincerity, nor do we doubt her assertion that ineffective teachers are a minority of the teaching profession.
But far too often in the past, promises by union leaders for real reform over the airwaves have been squarely contradicted by the positions advanced by union officials in political backrooms. Both national unions have steadfastly treated teaching, despite the high stakes for children and communities, as a right rather than a privilege.
The first test of AFT's commitment to the principles it outlined last month will begin tonight in Houston, and play out over the days and weeks ahead.
In a vote this evening, the Houston Board of Education is expected to approve a policy put forth by HISD President Terry Grier that would make student achievement a significant factor in teacher evaluations and create a tiered system where ineffective teachers would first be given the opportunity and resources to improve, but which would ultimately terminate their contracts if they continue to underperform.
Recent statistics show that right now, termination of teacher contracts in Houston is a rare occurrence. Last year, in a district where 100,000 students were reading below grade level. only 36 teachers, a miniscule .3% (yes, point 3 percent) of a total teaching force of 12,000 were let go for performance reasons.
Over the last five years only 140 Houston teachers were dismissed for performance reasons, while 240 were fired "mostly" for criminal activity. Could criminal misconduct, sexual abuse, workplace intoxication, and job abandonment really be almost twice as prevalent as poor job performance? It seems about as unlikely as it would be tragic.
During recent school board elections, where the biggest issue of contention was the use of student performance data in teacher evaluation, the AFT flew in staff and members from outside of both Houston and Texas in opposition to reform oriented candidates. Beginning tonight, the AFT can signal that it truly has embarked on a "New Path Forward" by standing with the Superintendent and the School Board rather than, as it had done in the past, actively working against it. The whole school reform world is watching.
Posted by Joe Williams on February 11, 2010 4:31 PM
February 4, 2010
DFER On UCLA Civil Rights Project Report On Overly Black Charter Schools
Democrats for Education Reform released the following statement on the newly released Civil Rights Project report on charter schools:
"The UCLA Civil Rights Project seemingly wants to block minority parents from choosing to enroll their children in better schools simply because it feels those schools aren't white enough. What's up with that?"
Posted by Joe Williams on February 4, 2010 4:41 PM
January 26, 2010
State Of The Union On Education
Statement on President Obama's First Year
Unfettered by inside-the-beltway partisan politics, President Obama indisputably has affected more change in the nation's education policies in his first year in office than any President in modern history.
The boost that the Administration's Race to the Top initiative - which was accompanied by a record $100 billion increase in general federal aid to education - has given state and local education reform efforts is the Administration's biggest domestic policy success of 2009 - all without yet expending a dime of the $5 billion Race to the Top fund.
What's more, while not a single Republican Congressman and only 3 Republican Senators voted for the economic and education reform stimulus package last February, the policy initiatives that Obama and Secretary Duncan put forth have since been embraced through both words and action by state and local elected officials in both parties across the ideological and geographical spectrum.
These accomplishments reflect campaign promises kept - in recognition of the relationship between education reform, jobs, and economic growth - to make education one of three key components of a long-term U.S. economic recovery strategy (the other two being energy and health care which obviously, and to say the least, have not fared as well), an augur well for the work on education reform that is yet to come.
Some effects are immediate - for example, more than a hundred thousand slots have already opened to parents across the country who want to choose a high quality public charter school for their children. Others, such as changes in state academic standards to ensure that students are college and career ready, the development of better tests, more rigorous qualification criteria and better pay for teachers, and fundamental overhauls of chronically failing schools, will pay dividends later this year, and over the next several.
These changes reflect an ongoing and historic realignment in education politics. First, the politics of education reform, at least once one gets outside the Beltway, increasingly have less to do with inter-party politics than with pragmatism and the imperative need to get children out of schools to which no parent would voluntarily choose to send their children.
Second, and equally important, it represents forward thinking by the President which reflects a broader base of support for real education reform within the Democratic party. The days when the interests of adults completely overrode those of children and parents, when elected officials not only did some of what they were asked to do by the education establishment but everything they were told, are slowly but surely coming to a close. This is the beginning of the end of monolithic control by powerful interests over education policy that has stymied sensible education reform in the U.S. for decades.
The fights are far from over. While some states that have been historically intransigent to real education reform, such as California, have enacted ground-breaking policies as part of their Race to the Top effort others, notably New York, succumbed to back room tactics and bullying by lobbyists trying to preserve and defend an educational system that is failing hundreds of thousands of children in that state alone.
Moreover, the real challenges for the Administration, the real tests of its resolve, remain. Especially in an election year, government officials will have to work hard not to succumb to political pressure to reward states that have proven to be unwilling to advance credible and ambitious reforms. A retreat to this old way of doing things in Washington would represent a squandered opportunity of epic proportions.
But if the Administration continues to keep the bar high for Race to the Top, and stays on the path of real change by making major investments only in those states and school districts that have shown the willingness to break out of the old ways of doing things, it will mark a major turning point in U.S. education policy, the effects of which will reverberate for decades.
To download DFER's handy 5-page fact sheet on "Educational Change We Can Believe In", click here.
Posted by Joe Williams on January 26, 2010 12:12 PM
January 19, 2010
Racing To The Top! (Updated 1/19/2010)
The U.S. Education Secretary's $5 billion "Race To The Top" Fund, as included in the federal stimulus package, represents a historic opportunity to establish clear reform priorities and to back them up with signifiant resources to bring change to America's schools.
CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW NEW YORK STACKS UP (Updated Jan. 19 2010)
CLICK HERE FOR AN UPDATE ON HOW STATES ARE LINING UP (Updated Jan. 8 2010)
CLICK HERE TO READ DFER'S HANDY RTTP FAQ+A PAPER! (Updated, Dec. 13, 2009)
CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW STATES ARE LINING UP (Updated, Dec. 14, 2009)
Click below for some concepts that DFER supports as part of the Race To The Top competition between states:
-- Race To The Top Issue Brief #1 - Public Charter Schools and High Quality Pre-K (June 17, 2009)
-- Race To The Top Issue Brief #2 - Unleashing Innovation In America's Schools (June 18, 2009)
-- Race To The Top Issue Brief #3 - Enhancing Entry Points To The Teaching Profession (June 19, 2009)
-- Race To The Top Issue Brief #4 - World Class Standards and Assessments (June 22, 2009)
-- Race To The Top Issue Brief #5 - Growing Innovative Charter Schools (June 23, 2009)
-- Race To The Top Issue Brief #6 - A Great Teacher For Every Child (June 24, 2009)
Posted by Joe Williams on January 19, 2010 12:29 PM
New York Belches in RTTT Competition
When I was a freshman in college, one of my buddies woke up one morning after a rowdy night on the town and decided, while doing a "walk of shame" back to our dorm, that he was going to join a 10-k run that was starting in the middle of our campus. He was hungover (probably still drunk from the night before, but so was I so details are fuzzy), out of shape, and he looked terribly out of place at the starting line. While everyone else was suited up for a marathon, my pal was wearing cut-off jeans and a ripped shirt. On his feet, rather than running shoes, he was still wearing the docksiders he had worn the night before - and no socks. (It was the '80's, give me a break!)
He ran for about a half mile and then vomited on the sidewalk.
It simply wasn't meant to be.
I thought of my friend a lot in the last couple of days, as I watched the New York State Legislature do the governing equivalent of puking up a bunch of Jagermeister on the sidewalks of Albany in the way that it handled itself in dealing with the federal "Race To The Top" contest.
Not that there's anything wrong with Jagermeister, but clearly my state legislature - like my old college buddy - proved once again that New York was not quite up to the task of competing in a race where everyone else at the starting line was there to win.
I don't mean to sound too grouchy, and truth be told, none of what has happened in the Empire State comes as a surprise. DFER was quoted publicly on several occasions doubting whether New York politicians had the guts to stand up to our powerful teachers unions and use the "Race To The Top" competition to once and for all declare that enough was enough in our state. There were times that I had hopes that President Obama's calls for change would be heard in New York, but in the end our elected leaders in Albany served our kids the way they always do. We're obviously working to change that.
So let's focus on the positive:
Continue reading "New York Belches in RTTT Competition"....
Posted by Joe Williams on January 19, 2010 11:00 AM
January 8, 2010
"Race to the Top" Hits Its Stride
After months of legislative work around the country, states are scrambling to meet the Jan. 19th deadline for legislative and policy changes as part of the "Race To The Top." What gets negotiated and signed in the next 12 days will largely determine which states cross the finish line with the kind of gusto it is going to take to win some serious federal dinero for public schools.
Since our last update on what states are up to (you can find that tally on our blog, http://www.dfer.org/2009/12/who_would_have.php#more) there have been some rather interesting developments that we wanted to quickly highlight - particularly because they involve some serious policy/political shifts in several key states.
California - Lawmakers there yesterday shifted power away from bureaucrats and foot-dragging school boards and placed it in the hands of parents, passing new "Race To The Top" legislation which allows parents from failing schools to yank their kids out and/or vote as parents to take drastic measures at their local zoned schools. Kudos to our friends, Ben Austin, at Parent Revolution, and Sen. Gloria Romero (our September education reformer of the month - http://www.actblue.com/page/dferseptember09) for their inspiring leadership on this one. The Governator will quickly sign the bills into law to make the Jan. 19th RTTT deadline.
Massachusetts -- Early this morning, the House passed RTTT legislation that will allow Boston school officials to shutter failing schools and convert them to new charter schools, without having to allow the teachers union to decide which schools could and couldn't be closed. Boston Mayor Tom Menino told the Boston Globe "this bill was made in Heaven." (Which probably means we better read the fine print!) The Senate previously passed its version of the RTTT bills and conferencing on the two bills was expected to start today. Legislators were on track to pass the bills into law by Jan. 14th, so that the state would have ample time to prepare its application by the Jan. 19th deadline.
New York -- Regular DFER readers know we have been frustrated for much of the year by the Empire State's unwillingness to take the reform competition seriously - particularly at a time when the state's coffers are beyond bare. But things have been moving quickly in the last month, starting with bold action by the Board of Regents in passing a series of K-12 reform recommendations. The Senate and Assembly are looking at what they can do to allow New York to apply, and earlier today Gov. David Paterson introduced a program bill that would eliminate the cap on charter schools, kill a law that bans using student performance in teacher tenure decisions, and allow the Regents to take control of persistently low-performing schools, among other things. The next week will be very interesting, as New York decides whether it wants to try to take the necessary steps to become a national leader. Stay tuned.
Continue reading ""Race to the Top" Hits Its Stride"....
Posted by Joe Williams on January 8, 2010 4:00 PM
December 16, 2009
DFER Applauds Introduction of Polis "All-STAR" Bill
Today Representative Jared Polis (D-Boulder), who serves on the House Education and Labor Committee, introduced one of the most important education reform bills of the 111th Congress, the "All Students Achieving Through Reform" or "All-STAR" Act.
Polis, the only member of Congress to have actually launched and run a charter school, has put together a strong package of school reforms that seeks to catalyze innovative approaches to education in the 21st century and bring to scale highly effective charter models that are showing success all over the country in providing children with new educational opportunities and narrowing achievement and graduation gaps.
Charter schools have been the cutting edge of creative and bold education reforms in the last decade, particularly in high-poverty, high-minority communities where previous efforts at reform have failed. In the best charter schools, there has been community buy-in and investment from day one. Parents have been empowered to overcome the "take it or leave it" approach to neighborhood schools. Achievement levels and graduation rates have soared.
No student who is on a charter school waiting list or who attends a persistently low-performing school should be denied the chance and the choice to get a high quality public education. The All-STAR bill would put in place the policies and resources necessary to expand opportunities for a quality education to hundreds of thousands more students across the country.
Continue reading "DFER Applauds Introduction of Polis "All-STAR" Bill"....
Posted by Joe Williams on December 16, 2009 11:52 AM
