A Young Teacher's Voice on the Devastating Effects of Education Reform

Written by Candi Peterson, WTU General Vice President

Recently, I received an email from a New York teacher blogger friend. He thought I'd be interested in a blog post from NY blogger, Carol Burris who writes Round the Inkwell. Burris, a high school principal and former Spanish teacher also guest blogs for Valerie Strauss' who writes The Answer sheet which is featured in The Washington Post. On Burris' blog, she shares a letter from one of her former students who became a teacher.

Presently, this young teacher works in a DC Public High School. In her poignant letter to her former principal, she describes the effects of what education reform has done to teachers and students with the advent of the teacher evaluation system known as IMPACT.

To give some context to how we arrived here post education reform, the DCPS IMPACT teacher evaluation got it's roots in our district in 2009 and linked teacher performance to student achievement on standardized test scores.  A single standardized test score is used as a means to determine teacher effectiveness and there are no controls for differences among students, such as socio-economic level, attendance, learning disabilities, or other factors that are beyond a teacher's control.  Student scores are used to either reward or punish teachers for gains their students have or have not made.

Post Michelle Rhee, the fear factor is alive and well in DC Public Schools. Teachers report that there are strong messages by school/district administrators that they shouldn't speak up, complain, or offer constructive criticism. They fear reprisal, and most are in survival mode. For this reason, Burris wanted to protect her former student's identify. She states, "I have protected her identify, because sadly, that is what must be done in times like these." - © Candi Peterson 2015

Read her story below (Cross-posted from Round the Inkwell blog) and share if you like.

Good Morning Dr. Burris,

"I am not sure if you remember me, but I was a student at SSHS.  I went on to become a teacher and started my career right out of college at a high school in Washington DC.  In the four years since, I have seen what education reform has done to teaching and learning.
 
While I did not have any experience as a teacher prior to the introduction of common core, I have seen enough to know that this used to be a different game.  My first year of teaching, I felt incredible.  I worked in a school for students who struggled in mainstream classroom environments due to emotional or behavioral issues, but I had managed to figure out a way to reach them and make them excited about learning.  I found texts that not only challenged them academically, but also encouraged them to change the way they looked at the world.  I taught them the foundation skills they were missing and maintained a level of rigor throughout each lesson.

I was evaluated by my principal, assistant principal, and two “master educators” (unknown persons who show up in your classroom unannounced whenever they please).  I received a score of highly effective, which was to come with great recognition and a cash bonus. I was beyond elated.  My students were learning.  My students were excited.  I was learning and excited.  This seemed like great success, right?  Wrong.

After my students, who arrived reading at 2nd and 3rd grade levels, took the 9th grade DC CAS exams, my evaluation score dropped significantly.  No longer was I considered highly effective.  Their success in my classroom, while great, did not directly translate to the formulaic nature of the test; therefore, we were both unsuccessful. This didn’t just happen to me; it happened to all teachers in “testing grades.” For some teachers, this drop in scores meant that they were placed on probation, their pay was frozen at its current step value, or that they were simply pushed out of the system altogether.

My principal, though she worked SO hard to help us to improve the school culture and learning environment in our building, was soon under fire.  She was let go and replaced.  Under her replacement, the school culture/safety suffered, but teachers continued working.  Miraculously, we managed to improve our test scores.  Imagine my surprise when that still somehow negatively affected my overall evaluation score.

The teacher evaluation system in DC is a direct product of the damage that education reform is doing to real education.   Master educators and principals are encouraged not to give out too many “highly effective ratings.” Our value is based largely on test scores and our overall scores are calculated using a combination of a rubric and an “Individual Value Added” formula that we do not have access to.   It’s a process that I think fosters a culture of “teaching to the test” rather than really teaching young people to think and be curious, innovative forces in the world.

So many teachers are so frustrated, but so many administrators are following along because this is the mandate that has been given.  I have since moved schools, but common core hasn’t gotten any better.  The PARCC exam left many of my students frazzled and discouraged.  As teachers, we are struggling to keep up with what is required of us, both according to that test and our high stakes evaluation systems.  It is clear to both us and the students that this just isn’t working, but it’s not a truth that many want to hear and/or face.

I first heard about your work on this front when a coworker asked me if I had ever heard of you.  I was confused at first because I wasn’t sure if the Carol Burris everyone was buzzing about was really Dr. Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School.  Sure enough, after some quick research, I realized it really was you.  I said of course I had heard of you and that I had actually been a student of yours.  My coworker said, “your school must have been amazing.  She’s standing up for all of us.”  I told her that she was right: that it was, and that you are.

I may have been a bratty kid.  I may not have always understood you when I was a teenager.  However, when I tell you that I am so proud to have gone to high school with you as my principal, it is the truth.  You had our backs then, as students (even though we may not have always realized it), and you have our backs now, as teachers.  I am so grateful to you for taking the position you have and for standing on the front lines defending teaching and learning as it should be. From RVC to DC, your voice is heard and appreciated.  Thank you for all that you do."

Best,

Is Teacher Churn Undermining Real Education Reform in DC?

Candi Peterson, blogger
An Op-ed in this Sunday's Washington Post, written by Mark Simon, education analyst and DCPS parent calls attention to the rate of turnover of both teachers and principals as a huge education reform. Simon argues the turnover rates are so high we're losing a lot of our best teachers and creating a hostile culture in too many schools. Turnover in charter schools is even higher.


By Mark Simon, Published: June 15- Washington Post

"I suppose the leaders of D.C. Public Schools want me to be happy that social studies teacher Kerry Sylvia won’t be coming back to Cardozo Senior High next year. The sound bite sounded appealing when DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced recently in her new strategic plan that one way to improve graduation rates is to focus on teacher talent — to remove bad teachers and replace them with better ones. But what if, however well intentioned, the reforms are actually leaving uninspired teachers in place and getting rid of some of the best talent?

When I heard that Sylvia had received a notice last month that she was being “excessed” from Cardozo after 13 years, it didn’t add up. I know good teaching, having taught high school for 16 years myself and helped to design the celebrated teacher evaluation system in Montgomery County. My daughter is about to graduate from DCPS, and I have been an engaged parent and a close DCPS observer for 14 years.

Sylvia is clearly a brilliant teacher, committed to her students, her school and its community. She is not only an award-winning teacher but also a leader and student advocate. I’ve talked with her students, several of whom told me that Sylvia’s class was the reason they come to school. If the District’s new plan is eliminating teachers like Sylvia, it’s on the wrong track.

DCPS has one of the highest teacher turnover rates in the nation. Richard Ingersoll of the University of Pennsylvania estimates that, “nationally, on average, about 20 percent of new public school teachers leave their district to teach in another district or leave teaching altogether within one year, one-third do so within two years, and 55 percent do so within five years.” In DCPS, by contrast, 55 percent of new teachers leave in their first two years, according to an analysis by DCPS budget watchdog Mary Levy. Eighty percent are gone by the end of their sixth year. That means that most of the teachers brought in during the past five years are no longer there. By comparison, in Montgomery County just 11.5 percent leave by the end of their second year, and 30 percent by the end of year five. DCPS has become a teacher turnover factory. It has a hard time keeping teachers who are committed to their school and the community it serves.

According to Tom Carroll, president of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, “Teaching is no different than any other profession — experience matters. Researchers have found that teachers reach peak effectiveness with about seven years of experience. But 80 percent of the teachers hired by D.C. this year will be gone before they get there.” Carroll estimates that “the District is burning about $12 million a year on teacher churn — $12 million that is spent hiring and replacing teachers with no gain in school performance.”

Three aspects of the Michelle Rhee-Kaya Henderson reforms contribute to higher rates of teacher churn: unstable school budgets from year to year; greater freedom for principals under the IMPACT evaluation system to identify teachers for dismissal or transfer; and school closings. But most of the turnover comes from teachers leaving voluntarily, not those excessed like Sylvia.

For years, researchers, such as Jane Hannaway of the Urban Institute, have advised DCPS that turnover can be a good thing because odds are that replacement teachers will be better than the ones who leave. But I’ve begun to wonder if perhaps the wrong teachers, in some cases great ones, are being pushed out.

Now, a significant new study by researchers Susanna Loeb of Stanford University, Matthew Ronfeldt of the University of Michigan and Jim Wyckoff of the University of Virginia upends Hannaway’s assumption. The study, “How Teacher Turnover Hurts Student Achievement,” concludes that, separate from the relative quality of teachers who may be brought in to replace those who leave, teacher turnover itself harms a school. Turnover affects morale and the professional culture at a school. It weakens the knowledge base of the staff about students and the community. It weakens collegiality, professional support and trust that teachers depend on in their efforts to improve achievement.

In March, Post reporter Bill Turque penned an insightful profile of another demonstrably terrific teacher, Sarah Wysocki from MacFarland Middle School, who was fired from DCPS after getting low scores in her IMPACT evaluation. The mechanical process of IMPACT insults good teachers and doesn’t do justice to the complexities of good teaching.

If the reform strategies in place in DCPS were working, then perhaps a resolute and unsympathetic response to so-called “soft issues” of staff morale and workforce culture would be understandable. But gains in student achievement in DCPS have stalled. The dropout crisis continues. It’s not that reform isn’t a good idea, but these modest results call for some humility. They might even call for listening to the wisdom of accomplished teachers we can’t afford to lose.

The writer is a DCPS parent, the former president of the Montgomery County teachers union and an education policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. He blogs at realeducationreformdc.blogspot.com "

Is This Change We Can Believe In ?

Why In The World Did President Obama Dub Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee A Wonderful Superintendent ?

According to Time magazine article in which Michelle A. Rhee appeared on the cover with a broom, it states: “In the last presidential debate each candidate tried to claim her (Rhee) as their own with Barack Obama calling her (Rhee) a wonderful superintendent.” Who knows why Barack supported Michelle Rhee so effusively?

Whatever President Barack Obama’s reasoning for this national shout-out, the million dollar question is why would a president support a chancellor when Rhee only “offered pleasing but implausible claims, while saying next to nothing about educational policy.” (Daily Howler) Does Barack Obama still praise Rhee given that her 5 year education plan lacks any substantive educational reform other than to rid DC schools of a significant share of its educational work force through terminations and buy-outs thereby creating a revolving door at-will work force?

Many think Rhee’s incredulous claims of raising her former students scoring on the 13th percentile on standardized testing to the 90th percentile in her short lived teaching career were simply pleasing anecdotes that still cannot be substantiated. Rhee by her own admission suffered during her first year and so did her students. It has been reported that in Rhee’s second year she got better. Would Barack Obama have given Rhee an endorsement if he had known that she didn’t afford DC’s probationary teachers and teaching fellows the same opportunity she was given to improve as a teacher? Did the president know that Rhee fired approximately 70 probationary teachers arbitrarily last year without regard to their 'Meets and Exceeds Expectations" annual performance evaluations? Did Barack just turn a blind eye all in the name of politics ?

Would Barack Obama knowingly approve of a so called reformist like Rhee who failed to implement a city-wide mentor program for all new teachers as well as failed to offer regular and consistent assistance to struggling teachers like the peer assistance and review programs provided in the Washington-metro suburbs ?

Does the president actually think it is okay for DC's school chancellor Rhee to sign off on the terminations of 250 DC teachers

even though some teachers were not given annual performance evaluations,

even though some teachers were not rated according to the appropriate curriculum standards ,

even though some teachers were targeted for termination in order to meet a city-wide quota,

even though some teachers had not yet completed their 2 year fellows program

and just because some were probationary teachers ?

I thought that our president believed in the American way of justice and liberty for all. You mean Barack doesn’t support the right to due process and a right to an appeals process for public employees unjustly terminated ?

Some say that Barack was only straddling the fence between the Joel Klein/Michelle Rhee types and labor unions . I’m not so sure because our president’s actions speak louder than words. Is this change we can believe in? Coming Soon to a city near you !

Posted by The Washington Teacher. Quotes courtesy of The Daily Howler.