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(R) Trisha Calvarese
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President (To Win Colorado)
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REPUBLICANS
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December 12, 2016 12:15 PM UTC
11 Comments
Sorry but Sen Johnston's "reforms" do more to hurt education than help it. He was briefly the principal of a charter school and thinks teacher accountability is the problem in public schools that have scarce resources, underpaid teachers, rigid curriculums that prevent personalized teaching, massive losses of instructional time to test prep and a myriad of standardized tests, and an attitude that if a students gets a D or F, its the teacher's fault, not the students. Ask any teacher — something I don't think Johnston did.
Under his law, a good teacher would be crazy to take on difficult students (so younger inexperienced teachers can gain experience with high achieving students) or share a good idea with a colleague. That damages teacher collaboration, a key ingredient in successful schools.
Under his law, a good teacher is judged by standardized test scores, which in no way reflect a teacher's skills (Students today are so over tested they rarely takes the tests seriously as they don't result in a grade, and teachers have no ability to tell a student to take it seriously. if a student finishes a 90 minute test in 9 minutes, the teacher cannot intervene. )
Under his law, a teacher is held accountable no matter whether the student attended on a regular basis. If a kid is there one day or one year, they judged the same (And parents takes kids out of classes all the time for extended vacations during the school year — and its on the teacher to get them back to speed or risk losing their jobs or skipping a pay increase. When kids get Ds and Fs, its teachers who are blamed, not the kids for not turning in their work or skipping classes.
His law contributes to a massive demoralization of teachers — and discourages good people from going into education. How exactly is he creating better public schools?????
flatiron makes some good points. I would add that the school district makes the call on how strictly to adhere to SB10-191 guidelines on teacher effectiveness. It's OK with me to have 50% of teacher evaluation be on student test scores; but there definitely can be district and principal bias on the other 50%, which does in fact deprive teachers of due process, and drive them from the classroom (the "demoralization" flatiron spoke of.) DPS is known for bias and robbing teachers of due process. At least performance objectives based on improving student scores, if carefully written, are objective facts.
By the way, CHB, teacher demoralization is measurable – it isn't hard to prove if you look at teacher retention in any district. Jeffco's went from 10-15% turnover in one year. Another metric is teacher satisfaction surveys done by neutral parties.
DPS went through a year or two where they tried as hard as they could to purge veteran teachers, particularly those who were union activists. I know this may be a shock to some of you, but I tend to be a bit outspoken. One year, I was both very active in the union, and very critical of the district's purchase and implementation of a new canned, multimillion-dollar curriculum which didn't fit our students well.
Hence, after 10 years of good evaluations, suddenly I could do no right. Although my students had in fact scored greater-than expected growth for two consecutive years, (and I got a big bonus because of it), suddenly none of that mattered. I was basically railroaded out of the district. This happened to many other teachers I knew, including SPED teachers with 25 years on the job. After a few years of bouncing around and subbing, I finally landed a position in a small rural district, where they seem to like my work. I'm still outspoken, but perhaps picking my battles a bit more carefully.
When writing performance objectives, teachers should be careful to weasel word it for student attendance – "90% of the students who attend 90% of the time will achieve ___ on ___" If one's Principal or evaluator won't go for it, then it does become a union matter.
As I understand it, though, the main beef with SB10-191 is a small, stupid clause on "mutual consent" – both the teacher and principal must agree to a placement in a building. This put dozens of teachers in limbo when they didn't have principal consent, and they ended up on unpaid leave, which violated their contracts.
So if Michael Johnston is the whiz kid who cooked up this SB10-191 thing, and left that clause in it, he must have known that it would lead to good teachers leaving the profession – and he didn't care. That alone is reason I would personally never vote for him for governor.
"Sen. Johnston has a record as a solid progressive Democrat…"
So destroying teachers unions makes one a progressive Democrat post-Trump days?
Stray from Democrat orthodoxy, Colorado Pols throws you under the wheels. Typical.
"massive demoralization of teachers……." Easy to say; difficult to prove.
Not really. Ask teachers (privately because they dare not speak their minds publicly anymore). Look at the quality teachers leaving certain districts. Look at the troubles districts have in finding teachers. Look at the lowering quality of students entering education programs. It's all right there but solving it involves resources, and our fearless leaders are going to hide behind useless "corporate reforms" instead making tough decisions or advocating for the right choices.
And it has nothing to do with unions — this state's unions are primarily focused on bargaining for fair (but very small) compensation and benefits, time to actually plan coursework, and defending teachers who denied due process.
It's about time for a woman as governor.
I sure hope Cary gets a fair shot.
As far as low quality students going into educaion, that is not new. At CU 50 years ago, education students had the second lowest SAT scores on average.
The very lowest? My own journalism students of course!
So, it must be anecdotal.
Count me as one who likes Michael Johnston personally, likes the way he is on many issues, but his stances on education are a total disqualifier. Retired early from teaching for many reasons, but SB191 was certainly a key factor.
He challenged the teacher's union and he must be destroyed!
Disqualifier… how?
Meaning you wouldn't vote for him in a primary? Or you wouldn't vote for him in a general election?