I'm Late With This But...

I was on vacation, sorry I missed this. From the Washington Teacher Blog:

The WTU and AFT encourages you to Reject Proposed Changes to Sections 1601.7(d) and 1601.9 of Professional Education Requirements Campaign ends September 8th ! (Sponsored by WTU/AFT)

Link:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/certification/w8uuxke4p75xjm6?

The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) has recently proposed new regulations that would require DC Public School (DCPS) teachers to demonstrate effectiveness as a condition for teacher licensure renewal. Unfortunately there is not a lot of time to provide your feedback on the proposed regulations. It is the WTU's position that this proposed regulation would not benefit DCPS teachers, as a teacher's true effectiveness should not be linked to a teacher’s right to renew his or her license. What's at stake: Teachers evaluations are the responsibility of DCPS. In every state in the country licensing is the responsibility of the state and evaluation of teachers job performance is the responsibility of the local education agency. Allowing OSSE to issue regulations unilaterally that measure teacher performance may adversely impact your evaluation process and job security.


The WTU President, Mr. Parker and other WTU staff have provided testimony in strong opposition to these proposed new requirements. It will be important for WTU members to weigh in on these new proposed regulations. Please view the WTU "Get Active" message on changes to DCPS teacher licensure- Sections 1601.7(d) and 1601.9.

The public comment period ends this Monday, September 8th after which time the State Superintendent of Education will decide whether or not to move forward with these proposed regulations, so if you agree- PLEASE ACT NOW by clicking on the link above or responding to the email which has been forwarded to your email account by the WTU.

What makes this important is that this is one more way to alter performance and what performance means. If you do your job day in day out and get no assistance from the families who are even more responsible for the children in your classroom, if those same parents abuse their children or neglect them or are in the awful place of having to work two jobs and the kids are without the supervision they need, well, holding teachers responsible for the progress of these children is not responsible. It's like we're still washing our hands of the real problem here, one of a community. Hillary Clinton was absolutely right, it takes a village and Obama's right too, I am my brothers keeper. What both of these people are saying is that we are in this together, but by changing these regulations, we're basically hanging all teachers out to dry and making it that much harder to turn things around. If you continually attack your teachers, how effective are they going to be in the classroom if they have to constantly worry and think about this kind of shit?