Trial over California teacher protection laws opens

[alp227]

Source: LA Times

Attorneys seeking to overturn several of California's controversial teacher protection laws argued in court Monday that these statutes prevent the removal of "grossly ineffective" teachers from schools — contributing to an inadequate education for students assigned to them.

The opposition, however, countered that it is not the laws but inept management that fails to root out incompetent instructors.

Lawyers opened their case Monday in a lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of the laws that govern teacher tenure rules, seniority policies and the dismissal process — an overhaul of which could upend controversial job security for instructors.

Vergara vs. California, filed on behalf of nine students and their families in Los Angeles County Superior Court, contends that the laws are a violation of the Constitution's equal protection guarantee because they do not ensure that all students have access to an adequate education.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-teacher-lawsuit-20140128,0,805915.story

[okaawhatever]

1. Some important info. The man who testified today was being sued in this lawsuit until he agreed

to testify for the plaintiff. The charges were dropped shortly after agreement. Another one of the people scheduled to testify is a woman whose daughter is one of the plantiffs. Amazingly, the family had to move four times to find a good school.
The original story suggests they are a low income family. The mother decided to run for the school board and has since been elected. There's a story about how an unusual amount of money went into that race. How convenient. The former Bush officials behind this lawsuit (and Federalist Society founder) raised at least 200k for that local school board race. This is such a perversion of our democracy.

[JDPriestly]

2. My mother went to a one-room school. Her teacher was a graduate of a two-year teachers'

college. Yet my mother is one of the best educated and well read people I know.

Teachers can help guide a good student. But the quality of your teacher is less important to your education than the quality of your home and your own character.

See this article which explains the traits of successful students and successful people in America.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024396342

[Igel]

4. But that thinking is deemed incorrect.

Yes, there are enough studies and research--not often quoted--to show this.

But it makes the solution difficult. It means that we can't have faculty and political messiahs running to the rescue with a few words of revealed doctrine to save our children's academic souls.

It means that not only is there no educational calvary there can be no cavalry coming to our rescue. Nobody with a silver bullet solution.

You have to change student culture. You have to stop what happens in 5th-7th grade students that leads to significantly lower levels of learning. You have to stop or correct what's happening in homes from birth through high school that causes low SES kids, on average, to fail to catch up.

It means you can't put the locus of all learning in the classroom. You can't have, as one parent said, "I work hard. I feed my kid breakfast and get him to the bus in the morning, and make sure he's fed at night. That's my job. Teaching him is your job."

The local school district tried to get to the parents of pre-schoolers and teach them to be teachers. To interact with their kids differently. Talk to them. Explain and negotiate. Do all the things that most middle-class and upper-class parents do. The first time they tried it failed miserably. They had a room full of black parents with a team that included a white consultant and males. They waited a couple of years and tried it again with a room full of black parents and black female presenters that the white consultants hired. Huge difference in response, even if the presenters followed the same script using the same PowerPoint.

The results weren't all that great. The parents in the study the program was based on had incentives to show up at all the meetings. They were monitored with visits and with recording technology. They had remediation and reteaching based on the monitoring. This lasted many months. In the study it made a big difference on the kids--even though once the study ended most parents reverted. The district program couldn't make parents show up. They couldn't provide site visits or monitor the parents. It didn't last long enough. It was innovative. It was cutting edge. It was a complete waste of money and time because nobody is going to ever be able to implement the conditions of the study on a sufficiently large population in a system where the school board is elected.

Take the response to Common Core and, in Texas, the STAAR/EOC tests. Teachers are dodging a bullet. The kids fail the more rigorous standards. In Texas we've had the more rigorous standards for years. No kid in 4th grade hasn't been subject to the more rigorous standards since Kinder. Kids taking the 9th-grade EOC had been exposed to the new standards in Texas since elementary school. And yet the fail rate was massive.

They could blame the kids--which amounts to blaming the parents. They could blame the schools. They could blame the teachers. Or they could blame the test and the standards. The parents weren't going to take the fall: Their kids were all in the 5th percentile, drop-dead brilliant, like themselves. The schools had been blaming the teachers for so long that, well, the schools weren't going to be held responsible. As soon as the first parent showed up to blame the tests or the teachers, the teachers turned around and blamed the tests. Lo! They were all on the same side, opposed to the tests and the new standards. In Texas the standards are there but there's scant monitoring of compliance with them. That's very likely to happen in the other states full of brilliant kids who can't do algebra or show an understanding of chemistry, the future scholars of America.

[JDPriestly]

5. President Obama has recommended universal pre-school.

I support his proposal. Every child beginning at age 3 should have the opportunity to attend a well managed model pre-kindergarten at least a half a day and for FREE. That would make a difference. Get the kids potty trained and verbal and give them the opportunity to play with other children (learning social skills like sharing and waiting their turn) and language skills (story telling, contributing to discussions, listening, etc.) and all the other skills that a child needs to have when starting kindergarten and even more so first grade.

Our little ones enter the classroom with no concept, no experience in large-group dynamics or classroom etiquette. They are unfocused. They do not understand what they are expected to do.

In a pre-school environment, children can be encouraged to develop the habits of neatness and impulse control. They cannot learn that at home in a two-child or three-child family. Back when families were larger, children had a better chance to become socially confident and personally effective in a group -- a small group, but a group. Once a week at Sunday School or maybe also at some kind of play group is not enough experience in a group for a young child.

Remember, we humans used to live in tribes. We are social beings. Mothers, aunts and uncles worked together, communicated constantly. Today we live as isolated small families. So we need to give our children the opportunity to develop better social skills than they are developing today. The pre-kindergarten idea is not perfect, but we really need it.

[nikto]

3. Just a part of the highly-SUCCESSFUL Public School Privatizattion process

Big$$ is winning.






This also happening,
in various forms and methods, ]
to:

--The US Post Office
--huge swaths of the US Military
--Public Colleges
--The Internet
--Public TV
--Private/personal information (metadata)

What's next?
National Parks? Your Momma? You dog? Your cat? Your genitals?

Someday, soon....

Big $$$ will own everything.


The trend is not that subtle.