{"id":1379,"date":"2010-12-04T00:15:37","date_gmt":"2010-12-04T08:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/?p=1379"},"modified":"2010-12-04T00:15:37","modified_gmt":"2010-12-04T08:15:37","slug":"rouge-forum-update-resistance-on-to-the-next-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/rouge-forum-update-resistance-on-to-the-next-decade\/","title":{"rendered":"Rouge Forum Update: Resistance on to the Next Decade!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Little Red Schoolhouse<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The children walking along the road of truth and reason carry love to all; and they clothe everything in new skies; they illumine<\/strong> <\/span><\/strong>everything with an incorruptible fire issuing from the depths of<\/strong><\/em> the soul. Thus a new life comes into being, born of the childrens\u2019 love for the entire world; and who will extinguish this love\u2013who? What power is higher than this? Who will subdue it? The earth has brought it forth; and all life desires its victory\u2013all life. Shed rivers of blood, nay seas of blood, you\u2019ll never extinguish it. <\/em><\/strong>Maxim Gorky, Mother, p486.
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Community Colleges Freeze Up When Need is Greatest: <\/strong>In California, with a budget cut of 8 percent across the board, the community colleges turned away 140,000 students last year. In Colorado, the waiting lists for nursing programs at some of the state’s community colleges have grown to as long as 3.5 years. In May, New York’s community colleges stopped accepting applications for the fall semester and added students instead to a wait list. www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/11\/26\/AR2010112605087.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010112605159<\/a><\/p>\n

The \u00a0Admission of the Detroit Federation of Teachers Boss’ About What \u00a0DFT Allowed to Happen to DFT Members in the Recent Sellout Contract: <\/strong><\/p>\n

[Letter sent today to Dr. Barbara Byrd Bennett, DPS Chief Academic and Accountability Auditor]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Dr. Byrd-Bennett:<\/p>\n

We are getting a lot of feedback from teachers concerning the overwhelming amount of testing and progress monitoring they are required to do. While each of the assessments may have merit, taken as a whole they leave too little time for instruction. Teachers throughout the district are asking \u201cWhen do we have time to teach?\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the regular curriculum, students are assessed using the Star Math and Star Reading programs. They work on individualized lessons and assessments through Accelerated Math and Accelerated Reading. Three times per year students take a battery of benchmark assessments including up to five Dibels assessments, Burst, and TRC. Throw in quarterly Q tests that take two class periods per day for four days each quarter, and two to three weeks of MEAP testing, and it\u2019s no wonder teachers want more time to teach.<\/p>\n

In between benchmarks, teachers are asked to print up to 80 pages of Burst lessons every two weeks. These lessons are to be taught to the lowest achieving four to five students in each class for a half hour per day. Some schools don\u2019t have enough toner to print these lessons, others don\u2019t have enough copiers, and nobody seems to have enough time. One teacher estimates that a quarter of her instructional time is devoted to these assessments and progress monitoring.<\/p>\n

On a weekly basis, teachers also are asked to do time-consuming progress monitoring for Dibels and TRC. Much if this work is done with one student at a time. While our teachers are doing their best to keep the rest of the class doing meaningful work, it is not possible to properly monitor and coach the others while you are testing individuals.<\/p>\n

Two common themes emerge from discussions with teachers throughout the district. First, these assessments all have some merit individually, but together, they are too much. Second, we as teachers can handle all this, but our students are suffering.<\/p>\n

One teacher told me that for one day, she ignored Burst, Dibels, TRC, Accelerated Math and Reading, and all she did was teach. It was the best day the class had all year! The saddest thing is, this didn\u2019t happen until the third week of October, and she had to ignore directives to make it happen at all.<\/p>\n

To bring more balance to the classroom, we suggest that the district strongly consider the following changes.<\/p>\n

1. Eliminate the Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 benchmark tests. These tests are not aligned with the district\u2019s scope and sequence charts. Students are taking tests in November on material that won\u2019t be covered until March. As a result, there is no validity to these tests.Our teachers have seen tests designed by and for DPS every few years. From Exit Skills, to ESAT, to MIP, to Q tests, the tests come and go and you would be hard pressed to find a teacher who will claim instruction has improved as a result of any one of these.<\/p>\n

2. Allow teachers to use their professional judgment to determine the amount of progress monitoring to do. Progress monitoring in TRC is particularly difficult, since the text in the Palm devices frequently does not match the text in the books students are reading.<\/p>\n

3. Discontinue Burst groups. The lower achieving students can be helped in the regular classroom setting.<\/p>\n

4. Provide additional personnel to help with assessments. Whether the district allows literacy coaches to do some of the assessments or provides classroom aides to assist with class management, more help is needed to keep all children learning.<\/p>\n

We know that standardized testing is here to stay. To improve our scores, we need more instructional time, not more tests.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sincerely,
\nMark O\u2019Keefe
\nDFT Executive Vice President
\nwww.youtube.com\/watch?v=zBqqbRRF4J8<\/a><\/p>\n

Another Bill Gates Shoe Drops on School Workers: <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now Bill Gates, who in recent years has turned his attention and considerable fortune to improving American education, is investing $335 million through his foundation to overhaul the personnel departments of several big school systems. A big chunk of that money is financing research by dozens of social scientists and thousands of teachers to develop a better system for evaluating classroom instruction.<\/p>\n

The effort will have enormous consequences for the movement to hold schools and educators more accountable for student achievement.<\/p>\n

Twenty states are overhauling their teacher-evaluation systems, partly to fulfill plans set in motion by a $4 billion federal grant competition, and they are eagerly awaiting the research results.<\/p>\n

For teachers, the findings could mean more scrutiny. But they may also provide more specific guidance about what is expected of the teachers in the classroom if new experiments with other measures are adopted \u2014 including tests that gauge teachers\u2019 mastery of their subjects, surveys that ask students about the learning environments in their classes and digital videos of teachers\u2019 lessons, scored by experts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s huge,\u201d said Deborah Loewenberg Ball, dean of the University of Michigan School of Education. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to do something nobody\u2019s done before, and do it very quickly.\u201d www.nytimes.com\/2010\/12\/04\/education\/04teacher.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print<\/a><\/p>\n

We Say FightBack<\/span><\/strong>!<\/p>\n