On Thursday, May 29, the Administration presented the teacher association's Discussion team with their ideas for placement of Art, Music, and PE teachers for the 2008-2009 school year.
History - Negotiations 2007
During negotiations for the current contract, our Association asked for full time Art, Music, and PE teachers in every building...as well as Art, Music and PE classes for all students, including Kindergarten. That request was summarily rejected. The administration claimed that to expand the special areas to that level would be too expensive - despite the fact that the school system has a huge cash balance.
The Negotiations team tried to tweak the request to make it more palatable offering to accept graduated staffing...smaller buildings getting fewer special area teachers and larger buildings getting more...but that was also rejected. The administration responded with a plan for all elementary teachers to receive 75 minutes of guaranteed, protected preparation time per day with a maximum of 1650 minutes of student contact time during a regular school week. Our team asked if this was feasible and were told that it would be workable.
Fast forward to 2007-2008
In September of 2007 the Association reminded the administration that they were going to have to plan for the 2008-2009 school year...the changes in elementary prep time were going to require some study. The administration put us off and said that they were going to take care of it. We reminded them again in October...and every subsequent month after that. They finally began working on it and have come up with a plan...just days before the end of the school year.
They expect us to accept it as is...because they know that our teachers do not want to leave for summer break without knowing where they are going to be next year.
There are other issues wrapped up in all this...the inequity of the student school day in different elementary schools across the system...the effort to bring more balance to the class loads of the special area teachers. There are simple solutions, but the administration does not want to put their money where their mouths are. They let their negotiations team box them into a corner on elementary prep time and now their desperately trying to figure a way out and claiming that they are doing what is best for students.
There is so much about their proposal which is just plain ridiculous including one teacher going to 5 buildings in 4 days, schools with multiple teachers in the same area and teachers running back and forth between schools several times a week.
It's clear that consistency in educational programs was not part of this plan...
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Doug Ward Loses...His Students Lose...
Jackson County teacher loses job over EOG testing dispute
Mike McWilliams
Jackson County Board of Education members on Monday voted unanimously to fire a teacher who refused to administer state end-of-grade tests to his students with severe disabilities.
The board went into closed session for about two hours during its meeting before voting 5-0 to agree with the superintendent’s recommendation that Doug Ward’s contract not be renewed, Ward said.
“They’re also keeping me suspended through the end of the year. They’re not going to let me come back and say goodbye to the kids,” Ward said. “But that’s what I expected.”
Ward, 36, a teacher at Cullowhee Valley School, sent a letter to his school and district administration May 12 saying he would not participate in the NCEXTEND1 because recent test changes made it impossible for his students to pass.
Students with disabilities must be tested under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. This is the first time a North Carolina teacher has refused to administer standardized tests, according to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.
Phone messages left with school board members were not immediately returned Monday.
Ward said he hopes to explore working as an administrator as he expects to be blackballed as a teacher.
“Hopefully this whole thing will motivate (the school board) to maybe take a second look,” Ward said. “But I realize it’s more of a system issue than anything else. They’re just kind of fulfilling their roles in the system and unfortunately, due to the law, that really doesn’t give them any latitude to use some logic or critical thinking when it comes to decisions."
-----
Dismantle NCLB!
Sign the petition by clicking HERE.
More than 32,000 signatures so far...
Mike McWilliams
Jackson County Board of Education members on Monday voted unanimously to fire a teacher who refused to administer state end-of-grade tests to his students with severe disabilities.
The board went into closed session for about two hours during its meeting before voting 5-0 to agree with the superintendent’s recommendation that Doug Ward’s contract not be renewed, Ward said.
“They’re also keeping me suspended through the end of the year. They’re not going to let me come back and say goodbye to the kids,” Ward said. “But that’s what I expected.”
Ward, 36, a teacher at Cullowhee Valley School, sent a letter to his school and district administration May 12 saying he would not participate in the NCEXTEND1 because recent test changes made it impossible for his students to pass.
Students with disabilities must be tested under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. This is the first time a North Carolina teacher has refused to administer standardized tests, according to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.
Phone messages left with school board members were not immediately returned Monday.
Ward said he hopes to explore working as an administrator as he expects to be blackballed as a teacher.
“Hopefully this whole thing will motivate (the school board) to maybe take a second look,” Ward said. “But I realize it’s more of a system issue than anything else. They’re just kind of fulfilling their roles in the system and unfortunately, due to the law, that really doesn’t give them any latitude to use some logic or critical thinking when it comes to decisions."
Read the Declaration of Independence From High Stakes Testing
-----
No Child Left Behind is leaving thousands of children behind!Dismantle NCLB!
Sign the petition by clicking HERE.
More than 32,000 signatures so far...
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Stopping the Madness: An American Hero, Part 2
Doug Ward, a special education teacher from North Carolina (now out of a job) has stood up and just said "no" to the insanity of No Child Left Behind. He was inspired by a student to take this stand. Read the account of his protest HERE, then watch the video below.
-----
Dismantle NCLB!
Sign the petition by clicking HERE.
More than 32,000 signatures so far...
Read the Declaration of Independence From High Stakes Testing
-----
No Child Left Behind is leaving thousands of children behind!Dismantle NCLB!
Sign the petition by clicking HERE.
More than 32,000 signatures so far...
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Reading First: Not the first failure, worse than nothing, and credit where credit is due
from ELL Advocates
by Stephen Krashen
According to the "Reading First Impact Report," children in Reading First did no better than children in comparison groups. In the media descriptions, as well as in the report itself, there have been several serious omissions.
Not the First Failure
This isn’t the first failure of Reading First. The current dismal results are consistent with all previous analyses.
A number of studies have shown that since Reading First was implemented, there has been no change in the rate of improvement on reading tests given by the states. Members of the administration have repeatedly claimed that national (NAEP) reading scores for fourth graders are at an all-time high, but a brief look at the data in NAEP publications, such as The Nation’s Report Card, shows that nearly all of the improvement took place before Reading First was implemented. Also, American fourth graders did not improve between 2001 and 2006 on the international PIRLS reading test. In addition, there has been no reduction of the gap between children from high and low-income families on any measure. Reading First has failed every time it has been put to the empirical test.
Reading First Less Effective than Comparison Methods
The Reading First Impact Report (and previous analyses) actually showed that Reading First was less effective than the comparison methods. Reading First students had an additional ten minutes per day of instruction on the elements of reading that Reading First assumed were crucial (derived from the National Reading Panel report). That’s about an extra six weeks of instruction every year. Even if Reading First were only mildly effective, the extra time should result in higher reading scores. It didn’t. This means that time was taken from other subjects and activities, as well as recess, and students got nothing in return. This must be one of the great failures of educational research.
Credit Where Credit is Due
The foundation of Reading First is the report of the National Reading Panel, which recommended phonemic awareness training, intensive systematic phonics, and de-emphasized the role of pleasure reading in school. There has been no mention of the many criticisms of this report (e.g. the work of Elaine Garan and Gerald Coles), and no mention of the vast research supporting a different view of how children learn to read. There has, in particular, been no mention of Frank Smith and Kenneth Goodman, world famous scholars, who proposed years ago that we learn to read by reading, by understanding what is on the page. Their view, and the considerable evidence supporting it, has been mischaracterized or ignored by advocates of intensive systematic phonics. The Reading First Impact Report has confirmed that Smith and Goodman and the critics of the National Reading Panel, were correct all along.
Dismantle NCLB!
Sign the petition by clicking HERE.
More than 32,000 signatures so far...
by Stephen Krashen
According to the "Reading First Impact Report," children in Reading First did no better than children in comparison groups. In the media descriptions, as well as in the report itself, there have been several serious omissions.
Not the First Failure
This isn’t the first failure of Reading First. The current dismal results are consistent with all previous analyses.
A number of studies have shown that since Reading First was implemented, there has been no change in the rate of improvement on reading tests given by the states. Members of the administration have repeatedly claimed that national (NAEP) reading scores for fourth graders are at an all-time high, but a brief look at the data in NAEP publications, such as The Nation’s Report Card, shows that nearly all of the improvement took place before Reading First was implemented. Also, American fourth graders did not improve between 2001 and 2006 on the international PIRLS reading test. In addition, there has been no reduction of the gap between children from high and low-income families on any measure. Reading First has failed every time it has been put to the empirical test.
Reading First Less Effective than Comparison Methods
The Reading First Impact Report (and previous analyses) actually showed that Reading First was less effective than the comparison methods. Reading First students had an additional ten minutes per day of instruction on the elements of reading that Reading First assumed were crucial (derived from the National Reading Panel report). That’s about an extra six weeks of instruction every year. Even if Reading First were only mildly effective, the extra time should result in higher reading scores. It didn’t. This means that time was taken from other subjects and activities, as well as recess, and students got nothing in return. This must be one of the great failures of educational research.
Credit Where Credit is Due
The foundation of Reading First is the report of the National Reading Panel, which recommended phonemic awareness training, intensive systematic phonics, and de-emphasized the role of pleasure reading in school. There has been no mention of the many criticisms of this report (e.g. the work of Elaine Garan and Gerald Coles), and no mention of the vast research supporting a different view of how children learn to read. There has, in particular, been no mention of Frank Smith and Kenneth Goodman, world famous scholars, who proposed years ago that we learn to read by reading, by understanding what is on the page. Their view, and the considerable evidence supporting it, has been mischaracterized or ignored by advocates of intensive systematic phonics. The Reading First Impact Report has confirmed that Smith and Goodman and the critics of the National Reading Panel, were correct all along.
-----
Read the Declaration of Independence From High Stakes Testing
-----
No Child Left Behind is leaving thousands of children behind!Dismantle NCLB!
Sign the petition by clicking HERE.
More than 32,000 signatures so far...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)