Stress, Hypervigilance, and Decision Fatigue: Teaching During Omicron," by Katy Farber

Education in our state is in crisis. This gripping Edweek piece authored by teacher Katy Farber does a good job of illustrating just how hard things are for teachers right now. This is so incredibly concerning, particularly in light of recent news reports on many Texas superintendents quitting their jobs together with teachers not staying beyond their first year. 

Let's consider positive structural changes to the teaching profession right now. Among other things, we need to reduce the number of standardized tests that they are required to administer currently. This robs children and teachers of precious instructional time. Low teacher salaries are also a culprit, as well as working conditions. They need more time to prepare instructional units and to enjoy the healthy lifestyle that they need and deserve.

My daughter is a music teacher and feel like I have a front-row seat to this crisis. She would echo everything expressed in this piece. If you have a child in school, be sure to show love to their teachers. And to their principals and office staff, too! 💗

-Angela Valenzuela

Stress, Hypervigilance, and Decision Fatigue: Teaching During Omicron

And, no, “self care” isn’t the answer

By Katy Farber — January 24, 2022

Katy Farber is a classroom educator and writer from Vermont. She has written and co-authored several books about education, including Why Great Teachers Quit and How We Might Solve the Exodus (Corwin Press, 2010).

“I have no words to describe what it is like to be a teacher right now.”

That is what I tweeted at the end of a day earlier this month, sitting on the couch while COVID-19 cases surged everywhere. As a writer and a teacher, I had no words to describe what was happening.

After sitting down to write this essay, I found a few words.

Teachers are in hypervigilance mode. We have been for the past two years. Teaching already had problems with attrition before the pandemic. And now? Those problems are all magnified, and we’ve added hypervigilance, times 10.

Teachers’ nervous systems have been in overdrive, firing constantly, during this pandemic. At first, way back in 2020, we were consumed with getting kids what they needed for remote learning. And then we had to figure out how to lead remote learning meaningfully. How do you use a new modality to deliver instruction? Why didn’t that student show up on screen today? Am I even being effective?

Then we went back to school in person. There were a lot of new protocols to follow. Many were unmanageable—including limited or no planning time, daily cleaning, physical distancing in small classrooms, open windows on cold winter days, no touching each other or surfaces. We got used to wearing masks for seven hours at a time. (Tell me, again, why it’s so hard to wear them at the grocery store?)

Our students were happy to be back in school. We went about trying to care for them, to provide joy, learning, and belonging in a fractured society, during an ongoing health crisis. This fall, life loosened a bit, and we carried on, teaching as best we could with restrictions in an environment that was constantly changing. We thought the worst was behind us.

As teachers, we heard a lot about self-care, in suggestions to practice mindfulness, yoga, or gratitude. It was our responsibility as teachers to “self-care” our way through this pandemic. But better outcomes happen when we change systems. For example, teachers can’t take “care” of ourselves unless we are given daily prep time or enough sick time to care for a family member that has to quarantine.

With the spread of omicron, the first week of the new year felt like a year. The virus is ripping through communities. Staff and students are getting sick. Almost everyone I know is a close contact. The hypervigilance we feel for the safety of the students in our care and our colleagues is at an all-time high. But now, there are fewer protocols in place and no plan for if or when to go remote. We are in a lion’s den with no clear directions about how to get to safety.

Our bodies and brains are in a constant state of hypervigilance at every level:

How can I keep my students calm, happy, safe, and protected? From guns. From abuse. From hunger. From a virus. This feels impossible, but we try and try each day to help them feel OK in a world that feels far from OK.

How can I best support my students who are stuck at home because of illness or quarantine? What is the best modality for each family? Remote? Printed packets? And all this while trying to also teach in person, while filling in for sick colleagues, while wondering if I am going to get sick next. How will the school run if I do call in? The worry never stops.

Hypervigilance bleeds into our home lives as parents and caretakers. Are the kids OK? Are they depressed? Do we do sleepovers? Good for mental health, bad for a possible spread. Do we see our elders? Good for mental health, bad for a possible spread. Do we test? Do we pose a threat? The hamster wheel goes round and round.

Before COVID-19, I sometimes struggled with simple decisions at the end of the teaching day, like what to make for dinner, what shampoo to pick. This is called decision fatigue. But now? The decisionmaker part of my brain is currently tapped out.

Some nights, we can’t turn our brains off because from the minute we got up to the minute we hit the bed, our nervous system was on high alert.

Teachers have dealt with every scenario at school—physically, emotionally, intellectually. That’s why our loved ones sometimes see an empty stare at the end of the day. We teachers have used up all our energy for decisions, protection, care, safety, emotions at school. There is often nothing left at the end of the day. No tolerance for big toddler tantrums, long conversations, negotiations with tweens and teenagers, making plans and logistics. We are often unable to respond to the needs of our own families with active, compassionate listening, decisionmaking, or planning.
The hypervigilance continues well into the night with emails and texts. Close contacts. New cases. Changing plans. Substitute plans and shortages. New protocols. We nervously check our phones for news of cut pensions, wildly increasing COVID-19 cases, crowded hospitals. We try to sleep. But some nights, we can’t turn our brains off because from the minute we got up to the minute we hit the bed, our nervous system was on high alert.

Nature helps. Meditation helps. Rest helps. It still feels like holding up a tsunami with our hands and a snorkel mask. We can only do it for so long.

And this is what I am experiencing in a highly vaccinated state in New England with strict mask requirements in schools. I cannot imagine how much worse this sense of dread, doom, and fear is in states where largely unvaccinated students and staff members are not wearing masks.

I worry about my colleagues. How many incredible people will we continue to lose to attrition; to mental illness; to diseases related to stress, inflammation, lack of sleep; to a delayed surgery, delayed treatments? Or to COVID?

I worry about missing moments with my daughters, time I won’t ever get back. I worry about the times I might be there physically while my mind is still working.

It's time to Reinvest in Texas Teachers

Investing in our state's teachers is long overdue as stated in today's Austin American-Statesman posted below.  Also, consider attending the March 11, 2019 Texas state teachers rally to the Capitol in Austin, Texas.  While we are at it, school district leaders, lest make it a point to hire a more culturally diverse faculty.  It'll make a positive difference in your school for everyone.

-Angela Valenzuela

3 ways to aid new teacher retention

Pixabay

3 ways to aid new teacher retention

Leticia Skae

 

 

August 24, 2017

 

 

Education

 

 Educational Leadership

Every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is check Facebook and the current events app on my phone. I read the daily stories as I prepare for work, like how my parents used to read the newspaper while eating breakfast.

Lately, my newsfeeds are filled with stories and statuses about political tension, global warming, healthcare reform and even the Kardashians. As a teacher, I can’t help but notice one striking absence. I don’t see the public absolutely outraged that our public schools are suffering, and I’m not talking about funds, though education always seems to be suffering from inadequate funding; I’m talking about a loss of teachers, especially new teachers.

In my 12 years of teaching at four schools in two states, I have seen my fair share of educator struggles. But now more than ever, I’m worried for our students. In my school district, we lose50% of new teachers within three to five years. For two years, I have been actively participating as my district develops and implements a plan to solve this problem. We’re not the only district struggling to address new teacher attrition. California has seen 20% to 40% of new teachers leave the profession within the first five years, and the percentage has been increasing.

The fact that our country’s most at-risk schools are filled with our most novice educators should alarm the public. The result is that only wealthy children can afford quality education, our most vulnerable students miss out on valuable educational experiences, and the disparity between the wealthy and poor in this country continues to grow.

Research shows that teacher attrition costs the US more than $2.2 billion each year. That’s billions of dollars we could be spending on additional resources for students: technology, textbooks, meals and additional support staff, to name a few. If we truly care about supporting students, then we need to get serious about the way we prepare and retain our beginning educators.

Though I could argue for better salaries until the day I retire, we must start with the people who are closest to our novice teachers: veteran teachers. Just as teachers have the most influence over student learning, I believe veteran teachers have the most influence over new teacher development and, ultimately, retention. Below, I provide a list of actionable steps I have used to better support new teachers in my school and district.

1. Cultivate meaningful mentorships. Veteran teachers often get so bombarded with grading, lesson planning and classroom management that we forget about the new teachers in our building who could use some guidance. If your school has not set up an official mentorship plan for new teachers, approach your administration with a few ideas, or make your own efforts to welcome new teachers, and check in on them regularly.

Five years ago, when a young math teacher began teaching across the hall from me, I made an effort to keep my door open. This signified that she was welcome to ask me anything she needed. I was not her official mentor, as we were in different departments, but because of our proximity she often walked across the hall to ask me questions. This ritual became so successful that even when I went on maternity leave, she would text me, starting her message with, “Hey, I got a question.”

2. Build committed partnerships. Mentorships are the first step, but then you must build partnerships where both colleagues can learn from each other. For new teachers to feel valued, they need support -- and they need to be heard. Treating our new generation of millennial teachers with respect will allow them to feel like they belong in the teaching profession and to find success in a challenging career.

At a recent Leader U conference, I spoke with the keynote presenter, Ryan Jackson, an executive lead principal in middle Tennessee. He stated, “Education is changing, and new teachers have to be a part of shaping it and implementing it. It is a long road but worth it and purposeful. [It’s] life-changing, when you do it well, for everyone -- teacher, student, community -- but you’ve got to invest.”

3. Spread your teacher voice. I implore you to close your doors at lunch time and email a state representative or a district official at least once a month. For too long teachers have gone silent and let others, who know little about our craft, tell us how to succeed in our profession. The more we advocate for ourselves, our students and our profession, the more we will be heard. My dad always used to say, “A squeaky wheel gets the oil” -- teachers, we better get squeaking.

Leticia Skae is a Literacy Teacher Development Specialist at MLK Magnet school in Nashville, Tenn. She specializes in diverse and urban education and earned a master's degree in education from Vanderbilt University. She believes in all students' potential to learn, and she is an advocate for teacher retention and teacher empowerment in the current educational system. Leticia has participated in many teacher-leader fellowships and served as a story ambassador with the Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ). Her most beloved activities are spending time with her family, reading, writing and tweeting. You can catch her on Twitter @LSkae.

Teachers seek special session to stop school cuts

Gary Scharrer | Houston Chronicle
February 1, 2012

Gov. Rick Perry should call Texas legislators back to the Capitol for a special session to spare more public school cuts next year now that the economic recovery is producing more revenue than expected, a teachers group said Wednesday.

The state ended the 2011 budget year with a $1.1 billion surplus, Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, noted and the current budget cycle is expected to produce another $1.6 billion surplus.

Perry should ask lawmakers to tap into the state’s $7.3 billion rainy day fund to avoid more school layoffs and larger class sizes next year, Howard and Texas State Teachers Association President Rita Haecker said.

The Republican-controlled Legislature last year cut $5.4 billion from public education for the current two-year budget, which forced school districts to cut about 32,000 school employees, including 12,000 teachers, Haecker said.

More than 8,200 elementary classes are larger than the cap set by state law.
“It is time to stop the bleeding and stop the cuts, now,” she said.

There’s little likelihood that Perry will call legislators into a special legislative cuts to spare more school cuts next year.

“There are no plans to call a special session on this or any other issue. Thanks to Gov. Perry’s fiscally conservative leadership Texas has a balanced budget and has increased funding to Texas public schools by billions of dollars,” Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle said.

Howard passed an amendment last year that would have sent money to school districts to help fund the annual 80,000-student enrollment increase if the Rainy Day Fund passed a certain threshold. But the amendment got stripped from the final bill.

The willingness to cut more education funding instead of using surplus tax revenue will become a campaign issue this year, both Haecker and Howard said.

“We need to hear from parents across the state,” Howard said.

The state’s future workforce and economic develop hinge on a better education population, both Howard and Haecker said.

Education cuts, they said, send a wrong message about the priority of education.

“You can sense in our community their frustration and anger. You will see their willingness to take a role in changing the outcome of this,” Haecker said.

The Texas State Teachers Association will be circulating petitions, urging Perry to call a special session.

Districts Pay Less in Poor Schools, Report Says

It hasn't just been education "experts" who have stated that within district funding disparities exist, communities have also argued this for years. Glad Dillon made a point of saying that this report does nothing more than confirm what we already know is occurring. I wonder how much money was spent to put this report together and how few dollars will be put into addressing the root of the problem.

-Patricia

By SAM DILLON | NY Times
Published: November 30, 2011

Education experts have long argued that a basic inequity in American schooling is that students in poor neighborhoods are frequently taught by low-paid rookie teachers who move on as they gain experience and rise up the salary scale.

Until now, however, researchers lacked nationwide data to prove it. That changed Wednesday when the Department of Education released a 78-page report.

Its conclusion: Tens of thousands of schools serving low-income students are being shortchanged because districts spend fewer state and local dollars on teacher salaries in those schools than on salaries in schools serving higher-income students.

“Low-income students need extra support and resources to succeed, but in far too many places, policies for assigning teachers and allocating resources are perpetuating the problem rather than solving it,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a conference call.

The report, Comparability of State and Local Expenditures Among Schools Within Districts, is based on data collected from 84,000 public schools in districts that had to report salary expenditures to receive emergency federal money under the 2009 economic stimulus law, which channeled $100 billion to public education.

The inequities documented in the report began to accumulate within a few years of the passage of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the main federal law on public schools, which channels money to educate poor children. To prevent them from simply substituting the federal antipoverty dollars for local funds, districts had to show that they were spending at least as much state and local education money in the poor schools getting federal money as they were spending in their more affluent schools.

But a loophole allowed school systems to report educator salaries to Washington using a districtwide pay schedule, thus masking large salary gaps between the higher-paid veteran staffs in middle-class schools and the young teachers earning entry-level pay in poor parts of the district.

A few researchers have documented the problem with statewide data in Florida and some other states, said Cynthia Brown, a vice president at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research group. “But I’m excited because this is the first time that data documenting the problem has ever been collected on a nationwide basis,” she said. “Many of us have known for a long time that in some individual districts the high-poverty schools weren’t getting their fair share of state and local funds.”

Federal officials estimated that although the inequities were widespread, alleviating them would not be costly.

“Providing low-income schools with comparable spending would cost as little as 1 percent of the average district’s total spending,” but the extra resources “would make a big impact by adding between 4 percent and 15 percent to the budget” of schools serving poor students, the department said in a statement.

Texas Schools Face New Rules on Financial Hardship

This history behind this legislation is sickening.

-Patricia

by Morgan Smith | Texas Tribune
11/23/2011

The Texas Education Agency has released new guidelines that set tough thresholds for school districts hoping to take advantage of special legal exemptions passed by the Legislature and intended to help schools cope with significant budget cuts.

A school district's declaration of “financial exigency” is necessary to trigger many provisions of Senate Bill 8, including those that allow districts to streamline mid-contract employee terminations and avoid seniority-based layoffs in certain circumstances. The law, passed during the special session, left it up to the Commissioner of Education to establish a minimum standard for such declarations, which were previously largely in the hands of local school boards.

The rules released Wednesday give several scenarios that allow districts to claim financial exigency — but they are so rigorous that it’s likely that only a small number of districts will actually meet the any of the standards, says Jackie Lain, an associate executive director at the Texas Association of School Boards. The conditions include a funding reduction of more than 10 percent per student or more than a 20 percent decrease in its fund balance.

To put that in perspective, the $4 billion reduction to public education funding during the past legislative session has most districts seeing a 6 percent cut during the first year of the biennium and not more than a 9 percent cut in the second year. Districts vary widely in how much they've used of their fund balances, which amount to emergency savings accounts.

"Before SB8 there weren’t any standards for declaring financial exigency and the bill required the commissioner to adopt minimum standards," says Janice Hollingsworth, who is the interim director of the agency's financial audit division.

Among the other conditions are a decline in enrollment by more than 10 percent over the past two years, an unforeseen natural disaster requiring significant expenditures in excess of 15 percent of a district’s yearly budget, and “any other circumstances approved in writing” by the commissioner of education. Hollingsworth says the commissioner maintained some discretion to anticipate any unforeseen circumstances the other conditions didn't account for.

What the new guidelines mean in practice, says Lain, is that districts may be forced to go through more expensive processes to lay off employees, whose salaries typically make up about 80 percent of their annual budgets, instead of being able to take advantage of the more efficient practices lawmakers approved during the session.

“The thresholds seem to be overly high without any explanations,” Lain says. “How the commissioner uses the discretion will determine if the rules are overly prescriptive, or properly restrictive.”

The TEA will have a period of public comment on the rules. Hollingsworth says they are "subject to change" depending on the feedback the agency receives.

For-Profit, Alternative Teaching Programs Are Booming

Reps. Villarreal and Eissler get to the core of why there's such a "boom" in for-profit teaching programs: for-profit, monied interests strong arm those who would want anything otherwise. If you undermine pre-service teachers' access to curriculum, don't be surprised when they struggle in the classroom.

In Texas, where certain outspoken parents oppose racialized histories out of fear of "indoctrination", they should be asking how these teachers that draw primarily from personal experience void of any preparation on how to create a learning process that allows students to develop their own voices and identities is anything different.

-Patricia


by Morgan Smith and Nick Pandolfo, The Hechinger Report
November 27, 2011

DENTON — One afternoon in mid-November, Jeff Arrington scattered 80 paper gingerbread men labeled with numbers across the floor of his high school disaster-response class.

The numbers corresponded with the severity of injuries ranging from burns to hysterical blindness. His students had to categorize the “men” based on the level of medical attention each required.

Arrington, in the middle of his third month of teaching at the Advanced Technology Complex in the Denton Independent School District, has a background well suited to the subject. He was a police officer for six years — he turned in his badge on Sept. 12 and began teaching the next day.

He is earning his teaching certificate through an online, for-profit alternative certification program, a nontraditional route to teaching that is becoming more common in Texas. Such programs, which can offer certification in three months to two years, are booming despite little more than anecdotal evidence of their success. They draw candidates like Arrington who bring valuable life experience, but there are concerns about how they will perform as teachers, especially since they are more likely to end up in poor districts teaching students in challenging situations.

More than 110 alternative certification programs — including iteachTEXAS, which Arrington is completing, and nonprofits like Teach for America — produce 40 percent of all new teachers in Texas, according to an analysis of Texas Education Agency data by Ed Fuller, a Penn State University education professor and former University of Texas researcher.

For-profit programs dominate that market: Every year since 2007, the two largest companies, A+ Texas Teachers and iteachTEXAS, have produced far more teachers than any other traditional or alternative program. While virtually all paths to the classroom have seen declines since 2003, according to Fuller’s analysis, for-profit alternative certification programs have grown by 23 percent. (While the percentage has increased, the actual number of for-profit alternative certificates granted has decreased since the 2009 economic recession.)

Other states have begun allowing for-profits to enter the alternative teacher training market, but Texas has done so to the greatest extent, according to Emily Feistritzer, president of the National Center for Alternative Certification. Earlier this year, New York began permitting private entities like the American Museum of Natural History and Teach for America to grant teaching certificates and master’s degrees, but they are nonprofits. Some states, like Illinois, require that any alternative routes to the classroom be connected to the university system.

IteachTEXAS, begun in 2003, is the first for-profit, non-university based alternative certification program to expand across state lines, with the newly created iteachU.S. operating programs in Louisiana and Tennessee. Additional offshoots will soon come to Michigan and at least two other states.

Diann Huber, president of iteachU.S., said the program’s goal is to provide a new career opportunity for people who have been laid off in other industries, like auto workers in Michigan, who may be able to use their knowledge to teach high-need subjects like math and science.

Texas began experimenting with alternative certification programs in the mid-1980s. Then, the state “didn’t regulate who was operating private programs, and people saw that was a way to make a fast buck,” said Rae Queen, the president of the Texas Alternative Certification Association, who also runs a for-profit alternative certification program in San Antonio. Queen said the state now has a much more rigorous application and audit process for certification programs. In 2008, the state also instituted a minimum grade-point average of 2.5 for all teaching candidates.

Still, Queen said the reputation of for-profit programs suffers. “There are some companies out there that say ‘you want to be a teacher, start today,’” she said, “and they’ve done that through their own advertising campaigns.”

Some traditional educators believe that for-profits, which typically charge around $4,000 for a program leading to certification, accept applicants with little regard for demand or how they might perform in the classroom. “The for-profits will take anyone,” said Nell Ingram, director of the Dallas Independent School District alternative certification program, adding that her program will not offer courses in subjects that are not in demand.

Principals offer mixed reviews of teachers hired from for-profit programs. Most say those teachers succeed in the classroom at the same rate as traditionally certified ones, but others report that they seem less prepared.

Bettejean Gosnell, who earned her certificate through iteachTEXAS about seven years ago and teaches special education in Argyle, said she was the alternative certification “poster child,” a former Nabisco employee whose busy life drew her to online teacher certification courses. But while she said the program “worked out perfect” for her, she said it did not support her once she was in the classroom.

“I remember thinking that I wanted constructive criticism,” Gosnell said, “and I wasn’t getting it.”

The state’s most recent effort to regulate the industry came in the last legislative session, when Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, offered a bill that would require potential teachers to spend at least 15 of the mandated 30 hours of practice teaching in classrooms.

The bill struggled to pass — in the end, a watered-down version made it through — because of opposition from some in the for profit industry, who went after it, Villarreal said, because of their interest in “having as much flexibility as possible to deliver a very simple curriculum with limited time commitment” to process clients.

Vernon Reaser, president of A+ Texas Teachers, testified against the bill at a hearing in March. Reaser said it could have unforeseen practical consequences that could burden school districts and would not necessarily raise the quality of teachers in the classroom.

Reaser, who did not return further requests for comment, supported the changes to the bill that ultimately passed.

Evaluating teacher-training programs — regardless of whether they produce teachers through alternative or traditional routes — is “one of the toughest areas to get ahold of,” said Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, who has headed the Public Education Committee in the Texas House since 2007.

Eissler said for-profit programs were no more likely to turn out less-qualified teachers than their nonprofit competitors. “Like anything else,” he said, “there are some that are really good and some that aren’t as good as the others.” He said there is a need for the state to study which programs are getting the best results. Right now, Eissler said, “most of what we know is anecdotal.”

The state’s recent $4 billion reduction in public education spending has led to hiring freezes and layoffs in many districts. Some in the education community still question whether for-profits will be motivated to produce new teachers without a corresponding demand.

Queen said her program tries to avoid churning out graduates who will not get jobs by working with school districts to identify their greatest needs. She frowns upon applicants who she senses want to teach because they think it is easy.

“I will tell them they need to go out and substitute teach and spend time in a classroom,” she said, “and they end up self-selecting. They’ll come back and say, ‘This is not at all what I thought teaching would be — you are right.’"

Texas Teachers Say Classes Growing, Layoffs Widespread

Check out the findings from Texas AFT's study on "Destructive Budget Cuts Hitting Students and Teachers Hard"

-Patricia

by Morgan Smith | Texas Tribune
November 17, 2011

Since the Legislature's intention to cut $5.4 billion from public education became a reality, one question has dominated the conversation: just how bad will it be?

Not everyone comes up with the same answer. But the Texas American Federation of Teachers, the state branch of the nationwide teachers' association, has released the results of a web survey that reports extensive teacher layoffs, increasing class sizes and deteriorating work environments.

Here's a quick run through their results, which included 3,549 respondents, about 82 percent of whom identified as educators. (And remember, this is a web survey, not a scientific poll.)

· 92 percent said their district had eliminated positions — most reported between 10 to 50.

· 85 percent said the positions eliminated included teachers.
· 79 percent reported cuts to student programs including pre-K, special education, electives, and athletics.

· Tutoring was the program respondents most frequently reported as cut

· 87 percent said that class sizes had increased at both the elementary and secondary level.

The survey also asked respondents about their schools' climate for students, teachers, and staff — and how that compared to the year before. 81 percent said it was "worse" or "much worse," and 72 percent described it as "stressful and taxing."

The survey confirms the impact that the budget is having an impact on classroom instruction, Texas AFT president Linda Bridges said, adding that its results show that Gov. Rick Perry has been "spinning a tale" about balancing the budget without harming public education. She said that her organization planned a follow up survey in the spring, and noted that because of the way school districts have structured their budgets, most of the worst cuts are still to come.

As the new school year progresses, expect many more attempts at quantifying the effects of the budget cuts in public education.

Starting Early to Create City Teachers

It's good to see cities like Chicago questioning the disparity in teachers of color relative to student representation. What's important to note is that it's not just about increasing brown and black bodies. Rather, we need to be thinking about preparing teachers and equipping them with competencies beyond academic (book) skills.

-Patricia

By REBECCA VEVEA | NY Times
Published: October 6, 2011

The gap between the number of minority teachers in Chicago’s public schools and minority student enrollment has widened over the last decade, but one school is working to change that by preparing the next generation of teachers.

At Wells Community Academy High School, where the racial breakdown of students is almost evenly split between African-Americans and Hispanics, more than 60 students are participating in a teacher training program that gets them to the front of the classroom years before most aspiring teachers.

Students enrolled in the Chicago Urban Teacher Academy at Wells participate in a four-year curriculum — in partnership with National Louis University — designed to focus on best practices in teaching. One day a week students work in classrooms at one of three nearby elementary schools — Peabody, Talcott or Moos. As soon as November, first-year students start conducting lessons, and will continue to do so throughout the four years.

Ernesto Matias, the principal at Wells, started the program two years ago, and now it has three groups of students — one in its second year, and two groups of freshmen.

Mr. Matias hopes that someday he can hire his own students as teachers.

“Not only have they familiarized themselves with the trade, but they will have the classroom experience too,” he said. “At the end of four years, they’ll really know if teaching is what they were meant to do.”

Research indicates that there is a persistent gap between the percentage of minority students and the percentage of minority teachers across the country. For example, according to state data, in 2000 45 percent of Chicago Public School teachers were white, 40 percent black and 11 percent Hispanic. In 2010, 50 percent of teachers were white, 29 percent black and 15 percent Hispanic.

Meanwhile, state data shows, in 2000 52 percent of Chicago students were black, 34 percent Hispanic and 10 percent white. In 2010, 45 percent of students were black, 42 percent were Hispanic and 9 percent were white.

Census numbers reflect the trend: the city’s black population has decreased significantly and the number of Hispanics has increased modestly over the last 10 years.

“Our students, a lot of them come from communities where there are not a ton of positive role models,” said Andrew Cengel, a teacher at Wells and an adjunct professor at National Louis. “It would be nice if, when they walked into a classroom, they saw someone who looks like them.”

Jesus Fegura, a freshman in the teaching program, said an elementary school teacher inspired him to become a teacher.

“He kept telling me not to join a gang, because then I wouldn’t go to college,” Jesus said. “He stopped me from growing up on the streets. I told myself, When I grow up, I want to be just like him.”

The graduation rate in Chicago’s public schools hovers just above 50 percent. The Wells program also aims to keep students engaged in school, making them less likely to drop out and more likely to attend college.

As Jesus put it, he and his classmates learn “how to like why you’re here.”

rvevea@chicagonewscoop.org

UTEP grant to help fill need for math, science teachers

By Caylor Ballinger \ El Paso Times
Posted: 10/07/2011

Math and science teaching positions are tough to fill in many school districts across Texas. For the El Paso area, though, help is on the way.

The University of Texas at El Paso will receive $3.2 million in a five-year grant through the U.S. Department of Education, targeting about 250 recent college graduates, midcareer professionals and early retirees to teach math and science to middle- and high-school students. UTEP is the only Texas university that will receive the grant money.

Darlene Brown, director of UTEP's Alternative Teacher Certification Program and grant leader, said that even though school districts did not need as many teachers this year because of state budget cuts, science, technology, engineering and mathematics teachers are still in demand and will be for years to come. Brown said, "This is a wonderful day" upon hearing about the grant for local school districts and UTEP.

The alternatively certified teachers from the program are required to teach for three years in a high-needs school, meaning that at least 30 percent of the students receive free or reduced-price lunches. Brown said the most recent state reductions have resulted in fewer teaching positions available to university students and, in turn, around 200 fewer UTEP students want to be teachers.

"By 2014, we are going to be hurting for teachers," she said.

Brown said retirement will also play a role in the future because about 70 percent of the teachers in the El Paso and Ysleta districts are either eligible to retire or will be in the next couple years. She said the Socorro district is growing and will need more teachers for its growth.

Officials of the El Paso and Ysleta districts could not directly confirm their percentages of teachers eligible to retire. However, district officials said Brown's estimate sounded about right.

Mariano Silva, assistant superintendent of mathematics and science in the El Paso school district, said state budget cuts have affected the district's number of hires this year and that does not change the need.

Silva said that a number of the district's math and science teachers are eligible to retire, and that if they all did, the district would be put in a difficult position.

"There is a potential need," he said. "If a significant number of teachers were to retire, it would be really tough to replace them."

Tom Miller, area associate superintendent for the Ysleta district, said the grant will have a huge impact on Ysleta and other county school districts. He said mathematics and science teachers are always in demand. Often, he said, university students with math or science backgrounds end up going into other professions, which generally pay more than teaching.

"It's hard to lure people into the public schools with the salary we offer," he said, and he noted that the demand is constant in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. "There are better jobs elsewhere."

Edward Gabaldon, superintendent of the Clint school district, thinks the grant will have a big impact on the teachers the district hires.

"It's going to produce highly qualified teachers," he said.

Xavier De La Torre, superintendent of the Socorro district, said that his growing district needs several teachers, and that mathematics and science teaching positions are always the hardest to fill.

"I think this is going to be a great advantage to our district," he said.

De La Torre said the grant may also help by providing the district a new pool of applicants. He said a lot of mathematics and science teachers are teaching with minimum teaching requirements, but he added that this is not a reflection on their ability to teach.

Through the grant, De La Torre said, "we'll have teachers going into the profession who have a passion for it."

Grading The Teacher's Teachers

Here is a summary of the second article put out by Education Sector titled: "Grading The Teacher's Teachers" Report Authors: Erin Dillon and Elena Silva| September 6, 2011

-Patricia

Largely ignored during the past 30 years of efforts to reform K-12 schools, the higher education community is about to feel the glare of the public spotlight on its work — and that attention is causing concern and skepticism.

In January 2011, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), an independent, nonprofi t group that advocates for reforms in teacher policies, said it would rate all teacher preparation programs and publish the results next year in U.S. News & World Report. The announcement has rankled many, even in the teacher reform movement, and highlights in sharp relief the divergent factors and strategies at play. Most school reform efforts have focused on schools, districts, and communities. But the move to assess teacher education and publicize the results puts higher education under a spotlight that it has rarely experienced.

Schools of education have responded to the news with alarm, describing the national review of teacher preparation as “flawed,” “unnecessary,” and “a violation of sound research.” The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), a national alliance of educator preparation programs, found in a recent survey that only 12% of its member institutions plan to participate willingly.

Teacher preparation programs, of course, are already approved either by an independent accrediting agency, such as the National Council of Accreditation for Teacher Education (NCATE) or by a state-based accrediting body — usually the state board of education, or by both (National Research Council, 2010). State program approval varies considerably by state. In general, states set requirements that programs must meet for their graduates to be eligible to teach in the state. But state program approval is largely pro forma, and examples of states revoking approval — or even mandating signifi cant changes — are scarce. The variability and value of the current accreditation process has been the subject of debate in recent years. At least one national study found no difference in the student achievement outcomes of teachers educated at accredited programs versus nonaccredited programs (Levine, 2006).

NCTQ sees its effort as an essential push to reform a teacher education system that offers no guarantees of quality for anyone involved — from college students who attend the programs to the districts, schools, and children who depend on the colleges to produce good teachers. And despite the criticism, NCTQ President Kate Walsh says she’s convinced her organization will get the data it needs to do the full national review — and repeat parts of it annually. With $4.5 million in private funds to support the work and a team of more than 30 analysts and experts, her confidence may be justified.

NCTQ's national review follows its smaller, state specific reviews in Texas and Illinois in 2010 and two national studies of preparation programs in reading and math. Modeled after its state-specifi c reviews, NCTQ proposes rating each of the nation’s 1,400 teacher preparation programs against 17 standards for program quality developed by NCTQ with the input of a national advisory panel. The panel consists of education school faculty, state education leaders, and education researchers. (The initial 39 standards, considered too unwieldy for a national review, were pared down to 17 by the technical panel.) NCTQ said it will base its ratings on a review of course requirements, syllabi, textbooks and reading packets, student-teaching placement information, admissions requirements, and surveys of graduates and employers...

A Measured Approach to Improving Teacher Preparation

Below is a summary and Education Sector's brief referenced at the recent forum where Secretary Duncan announced Obama's plan for reforming teacher preparation (see previous post on this blog).

Education Sector Authors' names: Chad Aldeman, Kevin Carey, Erin Dillon, Ben Miller, and Elena Silva | January 28, 2011

Download Education Sector's full brief titled "A Measured Approach to Improving Teacher Preparation"

-Patricia

Over the next five years, more than a million new teachers will enter public school classrooms. But the system in place to produce these teachers—supported by an ever-expanding set of federal financial aid programs and multimillion-dollar federal grants—offers no guarantees of quality for anyone involved, from the college students who often borrow thousands of dollars to attend teacher preparation programs to the districts, schools, and children that depend on good teachers.

"Simply put, the nation's thousands of teacher preparation programs are good at churning out teachers but far less successful at ensuring that those teachers meet the needs of public schools and students," say the authors of a new Education Sector policy brief. In A Measured Approach to Improving Teacher Preparation, analysts Chad Aldeman, Kevin Carey, Erin Dillon, Ben Miller, and Elena Silva examine the way the United States currently prepares teachers and offers some specific suggestions on how to improve it.

The time is right, the authors argue. Once again, the reauthorization of federal education legislation appears to be on the table. And momentum to reform teacher preparation is gaining at both the state and national levels.

In this brief, the authors propose a three-part strategy to improve teacher preparation:

1. Create a new federal framework for assessing and improving teacher preparation programs, one that "encourages accurate and honest reporting on outcomes-based indicators of quality."
2. Establish a new set of competitive grants to encourage states and institutions to "make ambitious changes to how, and how rigorously, they monitor, evaluate, and improve their teacher preparation programs." Under current law, the authors note, states have the responsibility to hold their institutions accountable, but do not have the corresponding capacity or incentive to do so.
3. Develop a new strategy to streamline existing financial aid programs and better align those programs with current efforts to improve the quality of the teacher work force. The authors suggest that "this should involve eliminating TEACH Grants, an ineffective pre-service grant program, and using those resources to expand debt forgiveness benefits for high-quality classroom teachers.

Education Dept. to Propose New Accountability Gauge for Teacher-Training Programs

By Kelly Field | Chronicle of Higher Education
Washington
September 29, 2011

The Education Department will release a report on Friday calling for new regulations that would tie teacher-training grants to the test scores of the teachers' students.

According to sources familiar with the report, the department wants to hold teachers' colleges accountable for how well their graduates' future students perform on standardized tests. Under its plan, states would be required to report test scores for students taught by graduates of their federally financed teacher-education programs.

States are already required to submit annual "teacher preparation" report cards to the department each October. But the data have always focused on the teachers themselves—how well they perform on state assessments, for example—and not on their students.

The department's recommendation is almost certain to be unpopular among teachers' colleges and teachers' groups, who will argue that many factors determine how well students score on tests. Lobbyists for the groups declined to comment on the report until Friday, when it will be officially released.

The secretary of education, Arne Duncan, has criticized teachers' colleges in the past, accusing them of doing a "mediocre job" of preparing teachers for "the realities of the 21st-century classroom." In a speech almost two years ago, he assailed states for approving weak teacher-education programs and licensing exams, and for neglecting teacher outcomes.

Secretary Duncan is likely to repeat those criticisms on Friday, at the official release of the report. But the secretary will also call for more money for a program aimed at producing more minority teachers.

Mr. Duncan will also call on Congress to enact President Obama's plan to overhaul the Teach Grant program. In his budget for the 2012 fiscal year, Mr. Obama called for replacing the program with a new $185-million Presidential Teaching Fellows grant program for states. The new program would provide states with scholarship money for strong teacher candidates in exchange for better reporting to help determine which teacher-education programs work.

Congressional Black Caucus Forum Highlights Achievement Gap Strategies

by Jamaal Abdul-Alim | Diverse Issues in Higher Education
September 23, 2011

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In order to eliminate the oft-cited “achievement gap” between Black and White students, the federal government should invest more heavily in HBCU teacher preparation programs instead of programs, such as Teach for America that only require short-term commitments to teach, according to Dr. Leslie Fenwick, dean of the Howard University School of Education.

That was one of most critical yet widely applauded recommendations made Thursday at one of several education workshops at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 2011 Annual Legislative Conference, which continues through Saturday.

The session, “Closing the Achievement Gap,” took place Thursday and featured a panel that included Fenwick.

When asked how HBCUs can be engaged to reduce the achievement gap, Fenwick stated that larger investments should be made in HBCUs because of their proven track record of producing more than their share of the nation’s Black teachers.

“HBCUs are less than 4 percent of the nation’s colleges and universities, yet we prepare 51 percent of the nation’s (African-American) teachers,” Fenwick said in making the case for greater investments in HBCU “pipelines” for the nation’s future teachers.

Later, when asked what policy recommendations she would make to the Obama Administration, Fenwick laid into charter schools and Teach for America.

Citing statistics that show many of the charter schools in Ohio have been pegged for state intervention, Fenwick said, “We need the administration to be a bit more wary about charter schools.”

Similar skepticism should be shown for Teach for America, she said, eliciting a chorus of agreement among the 200 or so people who attended the standing-room-only session. But among the highly vocal audience that mostly agreed with Fenwick were several members of Teach for America, or TFA, who said they were perplexed by Fenwick’s criticism of the program and the audience’s overall agreement with it.

“We don’t understand it,” said Chante Chambers, the Managing Director of HBCU Recruitment at Teach for America, in an interview with Diverse.

“At the end of the day, I think we have a common goal, which is to improve the state of education in low-income communities for students of color, who deserve more than what the current education system is offering them,” Chambers said.

“I’m not saying that Teach for America is equal to four years of an education degree,” Chambers said of TFA, which provides college students with an alternative route to teaching. “But when it comes to effective teaching or learning in the classroom, there’s so many qualities that go into [it] besides an education degree.”

She also said the two-year commitment to teaching required by TFA is a good way to get youth advocates and leaders the kind of practical experience they need to more effectively bring about change in other venues.

Fenwick, asked to clarify and elaborate on her criticism of TFA, faulted the organization for subjecting minority students to non-credentialed teachers who are only asked to commit two years.

“Since Brown v. Board of Education, we have been having a conversation where we’re willing to put non-credentialed, non-certified teachers in front of poor Black and Brown children,” Fenwick said. “We don’t need that any more. We don’t need less-credentialed teachers going in front of children when we’re raising accountability measures.”

Though Thursday’s session momentarily turned into a bit of a trial for Teach for America, panelists focused on a variety of other topics.

Panelist Dr. Dolores Cummings, a Maryland-based psycho-educational consultant and CEO of Cummings Consulting, said educators need to be more respectful of parents.

“Too many parents feel they are not welcome,” Cummings said, “and when they come, that we’re looking down on them, judging them.

“In some ways, we’re going to have to engage them and make them our partners in raising the achievement test scores.”

Other suggestions included putting less emphasis on standardized tests in order to avoid creating an environment where teachers “teach to the test” and where, as panelist Dr. Mamie Locke, dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Education at Hampton University, lamented, students are actually trying to learn to the test and ignoring things on which they won’t be tested.

Notably, the Obama Administration is expected to announce details Friday about its plan to issue conditional waivers to states on certain requirements of No Child Left Behind in order to ease the pressure the federal education law implemented under the Bush Administration puts on schools to get all students proficient in reading and math by 2014.

“States can request flexibility from specific NCLB mandates that are stifling reform, but only if they are transitioning students, teachers, and schools to a system aligned with college- and career-ready standards for all students, developing differentiated accountability systems, and undertaking reforms to support effective classroom instruction and school leadership,” the White House said Thursday.

Other speakers at the Thursday forum included Dr. Adrienne Bailey, senior consultant with Stanford University’s Center for Opportunity Policy in Education; Dr. Dorothy Battle, an academic researcher at the University of Cincinnati, Patty Dineen, convener for the National Issues Forums Institute; and Ileana Martin, program officer with the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, a Dayton, Ohio-based research institute. The forum was moderated by Erma Johnson Hadley, chancellor at the Tarrant County College District in Fort Worth, Texas.

The forum was hosted by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), the Links, Inc., a non-profit organization of professional women of color, and the Kettering Foundation. Attended by individuals who ranged from members of parent advocate groups to officials with nonprofit organizations that work with youths, the session was just one of a half dozen or so workshops that Congressional Black Caucus members organized around issues of education. Other sessions dealt with the role of Black men in transforming education to the impact of integration on college sports at HBCUs.

The Annual Legislative Conference drew 3,000 paid registrants, but organizers said the conference drew a much larger number of unpaid registrants who were allowed in because CBC Foundation has a policy of not turning away anyone for inability to pay.

New York City teacher evaluations based on students' test scores can be made public, court rules

This is a step in the wrong direction. We should learn from the horrible responses of some teachers when the public disclosure of failure pushed them to extreme acts. This will not yield increased learning for students and certainly not better instruction among teachers.

We should all take note of Duncan's adamant support of this move. Very concerning.

Also check out earlier posts to this blog on this issue:

"When Does Holding Teachers Accountable Go Too Far?"

L.A. teacher ratings: L.A. Times analysis rates teachers' effectiveness

-Patricia

BY Ben Chapman AND Rachel Monahan
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Originally Published:Thursday, August 25th 2011, 2:23 PM
Updated: Thursday, August 25th 2011, 5:16 PM

The public has a right to view the controversial ratings of 12,000 city teachers that were based on their students' tests scores, the Manhattan Appellate Division ruled Thursday.

The decision, affirming one by the lower court, deals a blow to the teachers union, which sued to protect their members' privacy, citing disastrous mistakes in the calculations of the evaluations.

The Appellate division judges dismissed those privacy concerns.

"The reports concern information of a type that is of compelling interest to the public, namely, the proficiency of public employees in the performance of their job duties," the division ruled.

It was not immediately clear when the so-called teacher data reports will be released because the union will seek to appeal the decision again, officials said.

Secretary of Education Duncan: Release all teachers' scores!

The union needs permission to go to the state's Court of Appeals after the unanimous decision.

Media outlets, including the Daily News, sued for access to the teacher data reports, which compare teachers based on the progress students make on the third- through eighth-grade math and reading exams.

The reports that the Daily News initially sought to review are based on progress between the 2009 and 2008 standardized tests.

The state has since discredited those years' exams, saying the tests had become predictable and easier to pass as a result.

In addition to challenging the exams, union officials identified 200 other ratings that were based on incorrect information.

The lower court dismissed these concerns, arguing that the public had a right know. The Appellate Division agreed.

Teachers union officials continue to dismiss the accuracy of the reports yesterday, citing the wide margin of error for many of the ratings.

"Experts agree that an 'accountability' measure with a 58-point swing - like the DOE's teacher data system - is worse than useless," said United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew in a statement.

"Parents and teachers need credible, accurate assessments rather than guesswork."

For the last two years, the teacher data reports have been used to guide principals' decisions on whether to grant teachers the job protections of tenure.

"I think it's extremely irresponsible to associate teachers' names publicly with data where there is such room for error," said Julie Cavanagh, a special education teacher at Public School 15 in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

"You're providing misinformation to parents and potentially demonizing teachers. It's dangerous. Parents should be informed, but I don't think the data reports do that."

Duncan: Teacher Salaries Should Be $60,000 to $150,000

By Michele McNeil | Ed Week
July 29, 2011

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called for a radical upending of the nation's teaching pipeline—higher salaries, improved performance-based teacher accountability, and a higher bar for prospective students to enter schools of education.

In remarks today to a conference of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, he called for teachers to start out making $60,000 a year, topping out at around $150,000. His speech comes as thousands of teachers from across the country descend on the nation's capital to protest many of the Obama administration's policies, from the increasing reliance on standardized tests to using test scores to help evaluate teachers.

"We must think radically differently," he said, according to prepared remarks. "We must ask and answer hard questions on topics that have been off limits in the past like staffing practices and school organization, benefits packages and job security—because the answers may give us more realistic ways to afford these new professional conditions."

Top salaries of $150,000 a year won't come cheap, and Duncan acknowledged as much.

"And it will cost money—and—given the current political climate with the nation wrestling with debt and deficits—I am sure some people will immediately say that we can't afford it without even looking at how to redirect the money we are already spending—and mis-spending.

He called on colleges of education to raise the bar for prospective students, to lure the brightest in. "Top undergraduates will flock to a profession that demands high standards and credentials," he said.

Although Duncan's remarks today shouldn't surprise anyone, this does mark a fresh, reinvigorated push from the secretary, who wants to help remake the way we find, educate, evaluate, and compensate the nation's teaching force. He's already pushed states to alter policies on merit pay and teacher-student data linkages through the Race to the Top grant competition.

Now, he appears to be using the bully pulpit to continue to advance that message. As he begins to explicitly lay out the problem—the first step in any public policymaking process—expect him in the fall to begin proposing exactly what the Education Department can do to achieve this radical transformation.