Allen S. Griffin Award honors nine Monterey Peninsula area teachers

Nine Monterey Peninsula area teachers were honored last month for demonstrating a high standard of sustained excellence in teaching. They each received the Allen S. Griffin Award for excellence in teaching at the High School through Post Secondary School levels including a check for $1,000 from the Allen S. Griffin Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County (CFMC). The Allen S. Griffin fund is one of 28 scholarship and award funds of the more than 300 charitable funds held by the CFMC.

The 2013 Allen S. Griffin Award recipients are:

For High School:

Brenda Burran (Carmel High School – EL and Strategies)
Gary Childs II (Monterey High School – English)
Christine Berry (Seaside High School – Chemistry)
Kathy Buller (Pacific Grove High School – Spanish)

For Post Secondary School:

Kate Lockwood (CSU Monterey Bay – Computer Science)
Alice Lyman Miller (Navy Postgraduate School – Senior Lecturer)
Peter Ambler Shaw (MIIS – Applied Linguistics and Cross-Cultural Communication)
Haesook Han (Defense Language Institute - Korean)
Andres Durstenfeld (Monterey Peninsula College - Biology)

Established in 1982, the Allen S. Griffin Award was created by a bequest from the late Col. Allen Griffin, founder and former publisher of The Herald, soldier and civic leader, and one of the founders and former board president of the Community Foundation for Monterey County. The Griffin awards honor teachers with a record of sustained excellence in the classroom and significant impact in the community. The recipients are selected by a committee at each participating Monterey Peninsula school and the awards are given every two years.

MPUSD teachers: here's a novel idea

After writing about the plight of Monterey Peninsula Unified School teachers -- a situation that's very likely being replicated across California-- an alert reader from Soledad called me with this idea:

Teachers should just quit working and go on Medicare. After all, a huge chunk of their paycheck is going into health care costs, why even bother?

The caller added that prison guards get a lot better benefits and all they education they need for the job is a high school diploma. Why should a person study so hard for so many years if s/he will be so poorly remunerated?

This reader also voted for Prop. 30-- the first time he's voted for a tax increase in a long time -- to boost spending for education, and when he sees this type of stories, it makes him reconsider his support.

I think my reader is onto something here. For sure, tapping into the deep reasons why people are so angry at MPUSD, and at the system in general.

And I also believe this is a good opportunity to reconsider not just pay for the next superintendent -- more on that in the days to come -- but also compensation for teachers. I think some serious action is needed.

A Winsconsin teacher measures love

"Using a privately-run, publicly-funded love rating system--my family members and I rate our love for one another using a scale of 1 to 5. While the surveys are done individually and anonymously, the answers are compiled collectively and the results are shared publicly."

Thus begins this week's post of Steve Strieker, a veteran Social Studies teacher in Janesville, WI. In the post, Strieker pokes fun at the market-driven obsession with measuring knowledge, teacher's performance, etc. It's lighthearted and punchy, and I thought it desperately needed to be shared.

So here it is. Enjoy.

A must-see documentary on Michelle Rhee

Anybody who's interested in the state of public education should know about Michelle Rhee, the controversial former chancellor DC of public school.

Rhee was determined to reform the failing schools --and she did.

A few years later, investigations put into question whether those astronomical gains were even real.

Rhee has since founded an organization call "Students First" which is advocating on school reform based primarily on reforming unionized teaching. She wants states to abolish tenure and add similar measures often rejected by organized labor.

Today, student's first issued a "report card" that grades California with a "F" based on whether or not the state follows the reforms the group is advocating for. Find the report card here. And find a related article by the New York Times here.

A very timely Frontline documentary on Rhee will air starting tomorrow at 10 a.m. at local PBS stations. Check it out!

Watch The Education of Michelle Rhee Preview on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

The Chicago strike and what's a stake for teachers

Make no mistake, the Chicago strike is one of those crucial moments in history. It will determine, like my colleague Claudio Sanchez of NPR says in his story here, the relationship between the Democratic party and teachers unions for years to come.

We may not have seen this battle unfold locally, but it's coming. The Obama administration has been demanding states implement some sort of evaluation for teachers' performance. The fight to find one in California is alive and well, and it will eventually trickle down to the districts.

More importantly, and something that's not mentioned in my tocallo's piece, or anywhere else, is reformers efforts to de-couple student achievement from economic status. By trying to link teacher's performance to student's performance, the reformers want to say: no matter how poor a child is, no matter how horrible his home circumstances are, he or she can achieve on par with everyone else. How can this be possible?

From where I stand, that's the real fight, but nobody talks about it in this terms.

Confessions of a "bad" teacher

In case you've missed it, there's a really good opinion piece in the NYT by William Johnson, a special ed teacher who tells it like it is when it comes to the pressures of teaching:

"The truth is, teachers don’t need elected officials to motivate us. If our students are not learning, they let us know. They put their heads down or they pass notes. They raise their hands and ask for clarification. Sometimes, they just stare at us like zombies. Few things are more excruciating for a teacher than leading a class that’s not learning."

All this outcry about "public schools being failures" fail to recognize, like Johnson points out, that we'll always have different outcomes if we have different inputs. Children in wealthier schools, with more educated parents, do better. Look in our county, who are our winners in the math and science competitions? You can't blame poverty on the teacher. So far, all it's done is create an antagonistic -- and completely undeserved -- culture of blaming teachers.

Salinas high school teacher leads roundtable discussion about the teaching profession

U.S. Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellow and Salinas High School biology teacher Juan A. Govea will lead a roundtable discussion by Salinas Valley teachers on elevating the teaching profession, at Salinas High School Wednesday

The roundtable will offer an opportunity for local teachers to share with the department their ideas, experience, feedback and insight on how to elevate the teaching profession and support student learning.

Govea is one of 16 teachers selected to be a 2011 Teaching Ambassador Fellow after a rigorous competition among hundreds of applicants across the country. He continues to teach fulltime while serving as a resource to the U.S. Department of Education, helping local school districts understand federal policy, while representing the needs and interests of his community to policy officials in Washington, D.C.

Testing the teachers

Respected band teacher D.L Johnson of North Monterey County High wrote this essay in response to his experience taking the CTEL test. I'm curious: how many teachers in Monterey County had to take it -- regardless of the subject they teach? And I'm even more curious about its potential ramifications: are teachers now going to be evaluated based on their performance of the test -- now that there's so much emphasis on finding ways to evaluate teachers? I'll be curious to hear what teachers out there have to say.

Education's worst test ever?
By D.L. Johnson

On June 11^th hundreds of schoolteachers walked into testing centers throughout the state to take a 6-hour exam, that is by far the most difficult and excruciating over-all exam ever given to educators. I know I was one of them. When I left the six hour exam, after spending 9 Saturdays--attending the six hour class each day--along with hours and hours of study just to prepare for this one test, I left the test angry, humiliated, hurt, frustrated, furious, and mostly disheartened all at the same time. After 37 years in education my career was being tested on a subject area I very seldom if ever have had to consider in my music classrooms. From my perspective as a high school band director, it is the worst example of educational testing I have ever witnessed. Why? Music classes, including all the college classes I took after college, are based on performance. Not testing. In fact, it was the first written exam I had ever taken in 37 years (except the DMV test). It’s called the CTEL Exam. For many, I’m sure you would say, “It really wasn’t that bad.” However, look at what you teach. The CTEL test is based on the mechanics of learning English language skills as taught in a regular classroom. What if the subject you have been teaching is not based on English language skills? What if comprehension is taught before mechanics? Ex. If an Auto Shop student, who speaks little or no English, can put a carburetor together correctly in shop class, language is not the issue---Comprehension is. If a music student can perform the music correctly, language is not the issue---Comprehension is.

Think of the worst test you ever took in school? Most of you are probably thinking of a certain subject test like that Biology test you struggled through, or maybe the SAT Exam, or how about that five day CST (California State Test). For some of you it might just be trying to get through that DMV test for your first drivers license. The reality is the “educations worst test ever” is not taken by the students at all, but by the teachers. It’s called the CTEL (California Teachers of English Learners, formally called CLAD) Exam.

The purpose of the CTEL training is to train teachers how to teach ELD (English Learning Deficient) students, when they are mainstreamed into their classrooms. No problem with that. CTEL Training is a long and extensive program. For some teachers however, whose subject area does not include extensive language skills in reading and writing, (Ex. Visual and Performing Arts, Vocational Education, Physical Education, etc), the CTEL class and exam can be quite a challenge. Most educators will say there is nothing wrong with CTEL training for credential certification. To some extent I would agree. I actually found the subject fascinating over the 9 Saturday-six hours per day classes. I learned so much. Therefore, I thought there was nothing wrong with CTEL training. IT WAS THE 6-HOUR TEST THAT SO MANY QUESTION. It is so difficult even those trained in classroom reading and writing find it challenging. After the exam, I saw teachers angry, frustrated, mad, and even crying. Many felt it was a career-ending disaster.

The certification for ELD is not new. Teachers have been doing this since the mid-80’s. However, lately, many school districts have put deadlines that all their teachers be certified in ELD. This is where it all breaks down. Tests are black and white. This test is just plain fuzzy. 75% of the materials I studied for the exam were not on the test. Questions are based on everyday classroom scenarios. However, the answers are so similar, if you miss one hidden word, you might select the wrong answer easily. That’s, of course, if you really know what the word means in this situation.

When CLAD (now CTEL) training and certification was first introduced in the 1990’s, many teachers were told they did not need to take this because they were not directly involved with ELD learners. Also, school districts weren’t pushing everyone to take this training because the districts were paying for the instruction and paying the teachers for each day they attended the class. Now there are no school funds to pay the $2000+ cost per teacher. This is where this exam takes a bad step. The subject area teachers who were originally told they would not have to take the training and exam must now study a subject area they have little use for in the classroom. CTEL Training is based on regular classroom or subject areas that require a lot of reading and writing. Therefore all the CTEL test questions are based on a regular academic classroom scenario. (Not a shop class, music class, dance class, PE class, etc.)

Performance or demonstration (also called “Hands-On” courses), do not base their classes heavily on reading and writing (I’m not insinuating that language skills are not used in those classes. It’s just not the focus). Most the teachers mentioned above are closing in on 30+ years in teaching. When these teachers study and take the CTEL Exam they must translate each question (scenario) into a type of teaching they use very little in the classroom. In other-words, a P.E. teacher, Music Teacher, Vocational Ed Teacher, Dance Teacher, etc., must learn to think like an English Teacher. Not easy to do in the short amount of time given. The big question is not whether these teachers should have to be certified in instructing ELD students, but whether it is even necessary. Most good performance based teachers who have taught a few years have already figured out how to deal with their ELD students through physically demonstrating class content.

Yes we were warned. But we were also made to feel some of us did not need to study for this, or worry about the exam. It’s just like the people who were encouraged to buy a home, without fully realizing monthly payments would eventually go up. We got conflicting advice.

So why are school districts pushing this. Is it for money and bragging rights? Maybe? There are even rumors it is not even mandated by the state. Then who is mandating it? Is it the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, or special interest groups? I believe most teachers support CTEL training, but not the huge amount of class time, and most certainly not the final test.

My final evaluation of this entire experience, was that the test makers were trying to show us how difficult it is for young people to learn the English Language. I get it, but why sacrifice so many experienced educators just to make a point. It takes 5-7 years for kids to learn a language. We were given only a few months.

Of smart immigrant children and their teachers

Seventy percent of finalists in a national science talent search competition were the children of immigrants, according to a new study by the National Foundation for American Policy. Which has led many headline writers to blare the news "Children of Immigrants are Smarter." Read down a bit further and you'll find that these 28 talented young people are either of Chinese or Indian lineage, and that 60 percent of them have parents who entered the United States with a visa reserved for highly skilled immigrants -- many to be employed as engineers or scientists. In other words, not all immigrants are equal.

Immigrants come in many shapes and forms, and this study should not be used to conclude that children of immigrants are smarter than children born of native parents in the United States. However, the strong work ethic of the vast majority of immigrants, coupled with the top-notch education of their parents, make the accomplishment of these children almost a foregone conclusion.

This is not to take away from the accomplishments of these young people, but to point out something that's been brewing in the news for quite some time: the desire in some quarters to link teacher performance to their students test scores. No matter how much experts counter there are other factors that influence students grades, the move to blame teachers for their students shortcomings is alive and well.

The study by the NFAP should give everyone pause: the common denominator these of highly achieving students was not their teachers, but their highly successful parents. Their work ethic. As Prof. Paul Thomas of Furman University writes for The New York Times, this whole emphasis on grading the teachers is diverting from the real issue: poverty. A child who's hungry cannot learn. A child whose father's worried about getting evicted from their home has more worrisome things on his mind than learning the time tables. A child whose mother barely finished high school will have a very, very difficult time going on to college. It is well known that the best predictor of a child's educational attainment is their parent's level of education. It makes one wonder why, then, all this emphasis on teachers' performance.

There are many conclusions that can be drawn from the NFAP brief, and it will be used by many in the immigration debate to bolster their own agendas. Hopefully, it will also be used to reinforce, once again, that the most important factor of academic performance is how well educated and how involved the parents of a student are.

More on grading the teachers

The Brookings Institute, an influential Washington DC based think-tank, is jumping on the teachers evaluation fray with the new report Evaluating Teachers: the Important Role of Value-Added. I'll confess: I haven't read the full report (it was just released yesterday, just found it today, so have mercy on me). But it's not too long, and its conclusion may be something that pleases most. From the executive summary: "We conclude that value-added data has an important role to play in teacher evaluation systems, but that there is much to be learned about how best to use value-added information in human resource decisions."

The study looks at value-added, or the evaluation of teachers based on the contribution they make to the learning of their students, from four points of view: how is value-added used? what are the consequences (for teachers and students) for classifying or misclassifying teachers as effective or ineffective? How reliable are these types of tests? How reliable are evaluation methods between those that use value-added and those that don't?

There seems to be some momentum building up towards some type of standardized testing for teachers, so the more we know, the better off we'll be.

Grading the teachers

L.A. Time reporters Jason Felch and Jason Song will be available Thursday at 11 a.m. to discuss the findings of their investigative report "Grading the teachers." Felch, Song and Doug Smith analyzed tons of data to see which teachers are more effective according to how their students score on standardized tests.

I can almost hear everyone now holding their breath. And yes, their work has both earned praise and drawn ire. Praised from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who endorsing the release of such data publicly. The ire from Los Angeles teachers union president A.J. Duffy, who called for a boycott of The Times in response to the report.

Among the investigation's findings:

• Highly effective teachers routinely propel students from below grade level to advanced in a single year. There is a substantial gap at year's end between students whose teachers were in the top 10% in effectiveness and the bottom 10%. The fortunate students ranked 17 percentile points higher in English and 25 points higher in math.

• Some students landed in the classrooms of the poorest-performing instructors year after year — a potentially devastating setback that the district could have avoided. Over the period analyzed, more than 8,000 students got such a math or English teacher at least twice in a row.

• Contrary to popular belief, the best teachers were not concentrated in schools in the most affluent neighborhoods, nor were the weakest instructors bunched in poor areas. Rather, these teachers were scattered throughout the district. The quality of instruction typically varied far more within a school than between schools.

• Although many parents fixate on picking the right school for their child, it matters far more which teacher the child gets. Teachers had three times as much influence on students' academic development as the school they attend. Yet parents have no access to objective information about individual instructors, and they often have little say in which teacher their child gets.

• Many of the factors commonly assumed to be important to teachers' effectiveness were not. Although teachers are paid more for experience, education and training, none of this had much bearing on whether they improved their students' performance.

Read the report and drop me a line. I'd love to hear what you think.