Teachers won't participate in (WI) statewide task force on school accountability reform

[iwishiwas]

Source: madison.com


Teachers won't participate in statewide task force on school accountability reform

MATTHEW DeFOUR | [e-mail] | 608-252-6144 | Posted: Friday, July 22, 2011 4:58 pm


The state's largest teachers union will not participate in discussions led by Gov. Scott Walker and State Superintendent Tony Evers to develop a new statewide school accountability system.

Instead, starting in September, the Wisconsin Education Association Council will collect input from teachers and communities around the state about their priorities related to school accountability, WEAC president Mary Bell said in a conference call Friday.

Bell said her organization supports Evers, but doesn't trust Walker or Republican legislators on the task force.

"How can we trust the governor to be a credible partner on education issues when they just passed laws to make massive cuts to school funding and silence our voices in schools?" Bell said.

Bryan Kennedy, president of AFT-Wisconsin, said he also declined an invitation to participate.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_496236f2-b4b2-11e0-aedb-001cc4c03286.html

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I do not trust walker either. Why Evers is trusting him is beyond me.

[iwishiwas]

1. Teachers will not join Walker in education effort....

Another article. Olson has been recalled and I hope he loses. Why not include a Democratic legislator??

Teachers will not join Walker in education effort


COLIN FLY | Associated Press | Posted: Friday, July 22, 2011 6:00 pm | (15) Comments



MILWAUKEE (AP) - Wisconsin's teachers union will not join Republican Gov. Scott Walker's effort to create a new state accountability system to replace the federal No Child Left Behind after lingering mistrust following his cuts to their collective bargaining rights.

"We simply do not have the necessary trust or confidence," union president Mary Bell said of Walker and two other Republicans on the panel - Sen. Luther Olsen and Rep. Steve Kestell. "Our decision is based on experience with the governor and these legislative leaders over the last four months."

Walker wanted the Wisconsin Education Association Council's participation in establishing a new accountability system even if they didn't support him in the past. Walker joined forces with state superintendent Tony Evers, who also opposed his union plan.

"Improving education isn't a partisan issue," Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie said Friday. "We'll continue to put aside disagreements on other issues to collaborate with education leaders and improve Wisconsin schools for our children."

Read more: http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/education/article_393cff6e-b4b7-11e0-a50d-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1St79gJPR
///////////////////////////

[iwishiwas]

3. Walkers. "reform" will be ALEC!!......

....Wisconsin’s new governor, Scott Walker, has decided to follow in Thompson’s footsteps, pushing a half-dozen ALEC-inspired bills in his first weeks and months in office, yet remaining silent about the roots of these public policy “innovations.”

More than anyone else, three men have dominated the radical, transformative agenda in the state of Wisconsin. All three have long been ALEC members and active participants. The three are Walker, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald.

Scott Walker was an active member of ALEC when he was a state legislator in the years from 1993-2002, even listing his ALEC membership in his Wisconsin Blue Book profile. As a young legislator in the 1990s, Walker worked with then-Gov. Thompson in a successful effort to pass ALEC’s “Truth in Sentencing” bill. The bill would benefit the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which housed overflow Wisconsin inmates out of state for many years. At the time the bill passed, CCA was the corporate co-chair of ALEC’s Criminal Justice Task Force.

Former Wisconsin Corrections administrator Walter Dickey, however, says he paid close attention to the debate over truth in sentencing in Madison. “There was never any mention that ALEC or anybody else had any involvement” in the crafting of the bill, Dickey says. The authors of the bill, their goals and interests were never disclosed to the public. Instead, their agenda was presented as in the best interests of the Wisconsin criminal justice system and taxpayers.

In 2011, Walker is drawing on his experiences as a loyal ALEC foot soldier to introduce many ALEC priority measures “by request of the governor.”

Read more: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_8f26d924-b30c-11e0-ac6a-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1StAIFmeB

[999998th word]

11. People NEED to spread this info-far and wide.

[midnight]

24. Could not agree more with those not willing to trust the foot soldier of ALEC...

[plumbob]

4. Walker just wants a beard. Good for the teachers for refusing to give

it to him.

There IS no short-term evaluation tool that can gauge effectiveness over a student's lifetime, which is the time span of a teacher's influence. Our desire for instant everything has finally triumphed all logic, all sense. Here, they do 5 minute walk-throughs looking for 29 factors using 6 people in the walk-through. Anyone at all believe that any random five minutes in class will exhibit all 29 teaching behaviors, AND does anyone believe that one administrator and five teachers of assorted subjects can tell exactly how good a teacher you are based on that one five minute period?

I refused to do any walkthroughs, because they are looking for a beard, just like this case.

Here's to the teachers and students.

[Sirveri]

6. An alternative to refusal is to do it and undermine it from within.

Go on the walk through, and then declare that you saw everything they wanted plus a bag of chips. If they give you meaningless garbage, give them meaningless garbage in return.

[plumbob]

12. That would be all right, except they wanted you to go every day during

your conference period.

And the written result is handed in by the administrator - it's his call as to what appears there.

But yes, that is my typical behavior with silly rules.

[boppers]

18. Wait, I'm confused.

In one post you said 5 minutes, but in another post, you said every day....

The first just sounds pointless/absurd (it implies 5 minutes per semester/term), the second seems a *tad* more sensible (more data), with daily data gathered, so a "bad 5 minutes" on Tuesday could be normalized out with better results on a Wednesday....

Any chance you could go into more detail?

[plumbob]

20. Sorry for the confusion. I teach in a large urban high school (4000+ enrollment).

Each classroom will be walked through at least once during the semester by a group composed of one administrator and five teachers. So you may be observed by this group twice a year, perhaps more. Some teachers in the same hallway as I have been walked through once a week from the first to the last week of school - the selection is made by the administrator, and it's a black box. That is you being observed. There are walkthroughs every day to several classrooms (one per instructional period).

There are 8 periods per day in our schedule, so they need 40 teachers a day to conduct the observations with the administrator during their conference period. With 200 faculty, on paper, it works out to once a week to walkthrough each. But coaches can't go, science and math can't go (they're under a separate state remediation right now), student organization sponsors can't go, and so on. So it works out to a pool of about 50 teachers in all, which means that administration wants you to give up your conference period every day to go do a walkthrough, then discuss the results, observe the writeup, and then get back to your room to teach the next class.

Result? I had 2 walkthroughs all last year to observe me in my classroom. My next door neighbor had 36, and her neighbor had 8. None of these can go on the permanent record, because by law the PDAS system is the only assessment permitted on your written record. PDAS is pretty good, involves two full class observations by a trained observer, you participate in goal setting at the beginning of the year, and you get a chance to respond in writing to any sections on the form. The walkthroughs are used by administrators for their own purposes (what are they, really? It's another black box.) but nothing on them goes into your written record.

It all just seemed very time-consuming and formless to me. I have students who need tutoring, parent meetings, and even, dare I say, lesson planning (no! not during the day, the horror!), so I decided to opt out. Hope this clears it up. Thanks for asking.

[boppers]

21. JMFC.

I'm big on accountability systems, long term tracking, testing systems, but that is some fucked....

up....

shit.

Speaking as an informal observer, that totally seems like well thought, intent, getting warped into something completely and totally useless.

Thank you for the explanation.

I have a hard time believing it, because it's... well... insane.

(I think I owe madfloridian some karma, too).

It sounds like non-nonsensical bullshit. (yes, double negative, but not in the good way).

Thank you for the non-hostile response.

This is fucked. Bad.

[plumbob]

22. Thanks for the confirmation. Some days you think that you must be

getting too cynical, but really, I think not.

After retirement, I'm thinking someone ought to update Up the Down Staircase.

[Cool Logic]

15. Given that the legislature is going develop a model to replace No Child Left Behind,

it would be wise for teachers to be at the table.

Not only should education not be a "partisan issue," teachers will find it hard to argue that they were not part of developing the new model, when it is implemented.

[Scuba]

17. Disagree. They cannot expect an honest effort from Walker. Developing their own model...

...and then contrasting it with Walker's is a much smarter plan.

[Viking12]

23. You haven't been paying attention, have you. Walker will not accept any input honestly.

He just wants them to provide cover when he advances his RWnutjob agenda.

[patrice]

2. K&R for Awesomeness!! Teachers, BE Strong!! Solidarity!

:bounce:

[Fearless]

5. K&R!

[roody]

7. It's about f-ing time that teachers stand up for themselves.

[iwishiwas]

8. They have been trying but continuously get bashed by Walker who

now wants to work with them. What a joke.

[Ilsa]

9. Yep. Tell him to go screw himself. He doesn't give a shit

about education, just making money for his buddies.

[999998th word]

10. Good.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Yon_Yonson]

14. Fuck Walker and his NEOCON slugs

Go along with him and then sabotage everything from within and blame it on his brown shirt minions. Better yet, let’s call a general strike and shut his government down! Hurt them in their pocketbooks and make them bleed greenback.

[Lifelong Protester]

16. Anything he proposes (Walker) is suspect.

Has anyone heard how his "Employee of the Month" for public workers ever panned out? I heard it announced in the most hypocritical youtube video I have ever seen, and not a peep since.

I emailed him every day for a while, nominating a different teacher for this award each time. No reply. What a surprise.

[Yon_Yonson]

19. I to have done the same but I know he does not like us

Were common folks who won’t tow his line so we are just not worthy of his time. He claims to speak for us but he does not even acknowledge us ... how does that work? Herr walker is a psychopath!

[iwishiwas]

25. Look at this schedule for implementation--next Spring!!

......The group's first meeting is scheduled for Thursday at UW-Madison's La Follette School of Public Affairs.

Walker and Evers announced the formation of the task force last week. One of its goals is to help develop an alternative to the current system for assessing schools under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

The current system is considered flawed because it requires all students to be proficient on state tests by 2014. Almost all schools and districts in the country are on track to fall short of that goal.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has said states will be able to apply for waivers from the requirements this fall as Congress continues to work on a renewal of No Child Left Behind. The state task force will help develop the state's waiver application.

Walker and Evers want the new accountability system to judge schools based on how student performance improves over time. It would also provide support to struggling schools and reward successful schools.

A framework for the new system would be developed by December with implementation starting next spring.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_496236f2-b4b2-11e0-aedb-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1SyRN7z57