No, seriously.

Time? Really? A magazine cover for a woman who really just wants to fire "under performing teachers," oh, please. It's not at all about power and is certainly not about the kids. I've posted before what it's like in DCPS. My kid attended DCPS through Junior High School. Jefferson Junior High School and going there made my bright, articulate, fun and hard working child suicidal. This isn't even an exaggeration. She went to a psychologist; she withdrew; her grades suffered and she was tormented by her classmates.

Teachers can only do so much. Parents who raise kids that like to mentally torture other kids, or who raise kids that are in and out of juvenile hall or in and out of the system, parents who don't parent, bring kids into the world who behave in ways that I can't even begin or care to explain on this blog at this moment. Suffice it to say that in the media's Rheegasma, the media continues to lose site of what's really at stake, kids.

DC has lots and lots of problems.

Extreme poverty in pockets all over the city is just a start of it. Violence, joblessness, drugs, you name it, we've got it here and kids are a microcosm of all of these issues and we don't seem able to deal with any of these issues in a meaningful way, at least, not for the kids.

So, in a comment on another thread, a DCPS (self proclaimed math teacher of 2 years in DCPS) and he writes this about his recent evaluation:

Essentially, the principal has NO idea whether or not good teaching is going on in a classroom based on her observation. In the two years I have worked in my school, my principal has been in my room exactly twice -- both times to observe me in a situation that was totally inorganic. But I digress...

I went in to discuss the observation with my principal, and she basically said she thought everything was perfect. I received "Exceeds Expectations" ratings in every category, and she said that she had no suggestions for improvement. I can't disagree with her rating -- my lesson was very good and my kids were extremely well behaved. But as a teacher, I know I am not outstanding. I'm solidly good, but definitely not great. I'm relatively new at this, and there are lots of days where I really struggle. I'm happy to have the excellent ratings, but this type of observation and discussion doesn't help student achievement and it doesn't help improve teacher quality.

What I find interesting about what he says is that he hasn't been around very long. Evaluations like this are Arbitrary. It's something that Rhee supports, ARBITRARY evaluations.

What the union has been fighting for is the ability of teachers to be fairly evaluated. He's right, what he went through was a bit of a dog and pony show, combining that with say testing results and parent statements should help craft a better overall view of the teacher's performance. But, the arbitrary nature of testing (what tests? what results?) to the lack of discussion about holding parents accountable and actually failing poorly performing students...there's more to this discussion, but Rhee wants to focus only on Principals and Teachers.

From EdWize:

There is an old, tired trope of the education deformer crowd that fawns over Michelle Rhee like star struck 1960s teeny-boppers swooning at the feet of Paul McCartney: they care about the children, while everybody else [read: teachers and their unions] only care about the adults connected to education. Here is the latest rendition at The Quick and The Ed.

The Rhees and Kleins of the world cared so much about the children that they couldn’t wait to get out of the classroom, and as a consequence learned not a thing about the teaching craft.

Luke Laurie, Santa Barbara County Teacher of the Year in California and a science teacher, had a particularly witty response to this thinking on the listserv of the Teachers’ Network Leadership Institute:

To say that tenure only benefits adults and has no benefit for kids, is like saying that a stable home provides no benefit for children. Why don’t we just go into homes and take out those unqualified parents every few years and replace them with young, smart and motivated “Parents for America” who will raise these kids right?

My daughter attended Jefferson Jr. High and it was awful. Kids there were violent, didn't try, were cruel and those that did try or learned were taunted by a few really bad apples. If the parents can't control these kids and don't get them to be students (or their grandparents, guardians or foster parents), then how are teachers able to do so?

Rhee isn't the answer. She's a diversion and so are her policies from the real issue about students...how do we do better? As communities, parents and schools. Until it all comes together, blaming teachers and schools is really just intended to distract all of us from what's really happening. And what's really happening is worse than most of us even care to talk about and the reason my kid is now at a private school. Without Emerson Prep, I'm not sure where my kid would be now, but I'm certain, it wouldn't be DCPS, and that has nothing to do with the teachers. She never had a bad one, ever.

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Obama4UnityBeatsMcCain presents

A Forum on Education Reform

Please join the Obama4UnityBeatsMcCain slate of candidates for an Issue Forum discussing Education Reform in Washington, DC.

Hear from experts and local officials, and share your thoughts on how to improve the school system to bolster the chances of success for DC youth.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

6:00 to 8:30 PM

Thurgood Marshall Public Charter School

2427 Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, SE

Invited Panelists:

Tanya Kinlow, William Lockridge, Oralia Puente, Jeffrey Richardson, Nathan Sanders, Carl Thomas, Kathy Pearson West, and a representative from the Chancellor’s Office.

Nathan Sanders is the 2nd in command of the Washington Teacher's Union. Tanya Kinlow a former school board member is now an ombudsman for the schools and William Lockride, a school board member. I'm not thrilled that this is being held at a Charter School, but it is metro accessible (across from the Anacostia Metro Station), so I won't be kicking myself in the head over it.

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I’ve been over on the Washington City Paper discussing union issues. Sometimes, you have to bring the discussion to where the anti-union folks are.

In Loose Lips latest installment of the saga that is the Fenty administrations’ snubbing of all things union, we have this little ditty about a panel Fenty and Rhee participated:

Rhee told the crowd that she expects to have negotiations on the reform contract concluded within two weeks and ready for a vote by the Washington Teachers’ Union membership, LL has been told.

Her comments came during a panel discussion on education reform here in Denver with Michael Bennet, superintendent of Denver’s public schools, and other public education reform leaders. On a separate panel, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty spoke about his takeover of DCPS with New York City schools chief Joel I. Klein, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, and others. The event was sponsored by a coalition of more than three dozen education reform and charter school organizations.

So in reading this little snippet, did you notice anything missing?

I did. Teachers and their unions.

So, me being the meek, mild mannered, and quiet unionist that I am asked Loose Lips if there were any unions there, here’s his response:

Mike DeBonis Says:
August 25th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Nope, no union folks on the panel, and didn’t seem to be any union folks there at all, from what I was told. BTW, the AFT is a “platinum-level” sponsor of the convention and prez Randi Weingarten will be addressing the floor this evening.

Well, that sort of says a lot about this panel, doesn’t it?

To me, it says that Fenty doesn’t much care about workers, which includes teachers, or the voice of those workers represented by their unions. Oh, yeah, and I said as much in my follow up comment:

Thanks for the update Mike. All workers need a voice, no matter what field. Unions aren’t just for laborers (LiUNA), Electricians (IBEW), writers (WGA) or casino workers (UAW), it’s also for teachers (NEA, AFT, etc…) nurses (SEIU, CNA), Engineers (BLE, IUOE), county child support workers (Teamsters, AFSCME), even actors (SAG). To have an education forum and to not have any unions on the panel ESPECIALLY the very EDUCATION REFORM minded Randi Weingarten is a travesty. But to be an elected Democratic official to sit on such a panel is tantamount to being in your face anti-union. Something Rhee and Fenty seem to be courting as a mantra of theirs.

Perhaps if you're really really good, Fenty will bring his anti-union self to your town, too!!

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So, there’s talk in the news about the recent moves in DC concerning DC Public education and the firing of District employees, teachers, and now principals. In the past, Rhee, the school’s chancellor, had offered buyouts to teachers, it does not appear that principals will receive the same treatment because they are on year-to-year contracts. Which to me sounds “at-will,” yuk.

As I read about the firings of principals, something caught my eye in the Post

Recruiting and retaining high-quality principals have been longtime challenges in the school system. In 2005, then-Superintendent Clifford B. Janey said 25 to 40 percent of the system's 140 principals "are not the caliber they need to be."

My child is a product of DC public and I wasn’t going to let her continue down that path. She’s now on scholarship at a private school in the district and she LOVES it. Going to a DC Public school made her feel bad about herself, left her suicidal, had her in therapy, and saw this bright usually happy child avoiding homework and reading in class instead of learning. She went to an elementary school where her principal was beaten by two fourth graders so badly that he was hospitalized with broken ribs and a broken arm. Principals who take on the worst schools, like Anacostia High School, PR Harris and Green Elementary are then asked to turn around a school with little to no parent interaction, where kids are virtually warehoused, waiting to enter the workforce with no ability to do pretty much anything.

My kid was lucky. I had the determination to be involved in the PTOs and PTAs, the open houses conferences and it didn’t help. I couldn’t get her out of the hell she was in, so with no other choice, she went to a charter school. I became even more involved in the school, volunteering, PTO work, you name it, I did it. And even then, it still wasn’t enough. There were 28 to 30 kids in each classroom and my kid was getting almost no additional assistance with math or science which had been her favorite subjects, so on she moved to another charter school. This one worked better. It had smaller class sizes but no science program. For 8th grade, she went back to DCPS and there she was placed with the worst kids. Kids with criminal records, an inability to read, poor math skills and worse, with behavior issues so severe that she was constantly bullied, threatened and pushed around until she finally just completely closed off into the world of books where everything could be perfect.

So, when her high school accepted her and offered a scholarship, we jumped at it. The scholarship was contingent on her ability to perform after the 1st semester. Coming from DCPS and the charter school system, she was behind in English and only at grade level for Math, so she needed to be able to play catch up and if it didn’t work, there was always Woodrow Wilson High School.

But for the thousands of kids in DCPS, I can’t help but wonder what is achieved through the changes that Fenty and Rhee are now undertaking with DCPS. I just don’t think any of it will work. It won’t work because it seems more political than centered in making learning environments for kids. Take how the Principals not being renewed found out:

A form letter over Rhee's signature went out to the principals identified for firing yesterday afternoon. It was to be followed by a series of one-on-one meetings between the principals and instructional superintendents, their immediate supervisors, said Rhee's spokeswoman, Mafara Hobson.

If you treat your employees like yesterday’s news, exactly why would we think that you’d be out there for the kids?

DCPS has a lot of issues. From violence to behavior, to simply teaching and learning, but all of this can be turned around, I just don’t think it’s going to happen with Fenty and Rhee. I think it takes making the schools as important a part of the community with events and gatherings. If school isn’t community, then you lose out on so much community building that should be taking place. The real issue isn’t with failing schools, it’s with failing communities. So, when are we going to start helping each other?

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