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All I'm going to say is buy this book, read it and then help us get Dr. Ravitch to Seattle, please.

Check out the following reviews for The Death and Life of the Great American School System:

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"Business principles won't work for school reform, former supporter Ravitch says"

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'The Death and Life of the Great American School System" by Diane Ravitch

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"Ravitch: The Death and Life of the Great American School System"

A Response by Our Seattle PTSA President to My Testimony

I will not post this letter in it's entirety that was sent to me by Ramona Hattendorf. Suffice it to say, it was quite lengthy and revealing.

To wit:

"This was not a grass roots process. It was done at the organizational level - via delegates from different organizations, and then via elected representation within PTA/PTSA. As we gather organizational support, the coalition will be reaching out to a broader community base."

My question is, how can you represent the majority of members within the PTSA without it being discussed first with membership? And then, last minute say that it needs to be ratified within 24 hours after a big presentation by the Alliance on the NCTQ report to sell membership on supporting the CVS? I thought the PTSA was grass roots. It is to be grass roots, from the students to the parents to the community and on up. This was not that. This was top-down just like DG-J is and just like the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, has been on the subject of RTTT funding.

And my next question is, then who organized it? The Alliance for Education who are the parrots for Bill Gates and Arne Duncan with his ideas about merit pay and charter schools? Was this the PTSA's idea? Many of us would like to know.

After my credentials were questioned in the letter as to whether I was a member of the PTSA and a very lengthy description by Ramona of her process in developing the CVS with others, I wrote this response:


"Ramona,

First of all, if my membership lapsed, it was not long ago. I joined last year after my daughter was enrolled in Nova which was in January of 2009. After going to at least two meetings, I decided to volunteer as Legislative Chair because there was a need to fill that position. I will ask Marilyn to check on my membership to confirm that it has lapsed.

Interestingly enough, I am a member of the Lowell PTSA so I know I'm in someone's database.

Actually Ramona, several people who I spoke to the night of the meeting and afterwards said that they had not heard of the value statement before that meeting. I am not putting blame on you regarding that, you apparently did your best, but word just didn't get out, not at least until that night, to a significant portion of the PTSA membership.

The reason for the mention regarding our superintendent was because it was through that revelation that had been made last year that many of us had started to understand what was going on in terms of charter schools, which is what the Broad Foundation is all about, and that lead us to the Education Reform movement with the major players being people such as Eli Broad and Bill Gates who are proponents of charter schools that hire non-union teachers, young teachers, paying them less and demanding more in terms of longer days and working on Saturday's, merit pay and student assessment testing.

As a matter of fact, the NCTQ report that you introduced by way of the Alliance spokesperson in that night's meeting was paid for by Gates money and purports merit pay and high stakes testing. I am very familiar with that report and it discusses in detail "Performance Pay". Heidi mentioned the NCTQ report when referring to the CVS.I am not sure what she was trying to allude to but a connection was made. In fact the two of you touted the report enthusiastically.

You can see my post regarding the NCTQ report at:
http://seattle-ed.blogspot.com/2009/10/alliance-and-nctq-study.html
Scroll down towards the bottom of the page to see the post.

You and Heidi also stated during the meeting that you wanted to get the CVS approved before union negotiations. For what purpose? One of the items on the table is merit pay. I don't see any other points in the CVS that would be directly associated with union negotiations.

And yes, Governor Gregoire has asked the state legislators to consider merit pay in the session that they are in right now. It might not be in a bill on the floor as we speak but she has asked that one be formulated.

Ramona and Heidi, I stand by my words as a member of the PTSA and will not back down from them. According to the response that the audience had of my words, I don't think anyone else would want me to either.

Regards,

Dora


As an aside, Heidi Bennett, was very active last year in CPPS. I am aware of this because they were part of the organizing of the presentation that Oki made about his book which addresses his support of merit pay.

A representative of CPPS was at the PTSA meeting when the CVS was being presented to the PTSA, Stephanie Jones, and spoke up about the CVS. In turn, Heidi and Ramona stated that CPPS was in full support of the CVS.

Another question. Who is running CPPS?

I checked out the website for CPPS and there have not been any updates to the site since October and there are no meetings scheduled. I asked Stephanie about this and she stated that
"they" had been so busy with school open houses and community meetings that there have not been any meetings and that they would have a Facebook page up soon.

Has CPPS become a paper tiger with just one or two parents involved?

Inquiring minds want to know.

If people like Melissa with SSS and Ramona are saying that CPPS supports this and even had a hand in it, exactly what does that mean, really? Who exactly are CPPS representing? Did they do a poll or have a meeting?

By the way, CPPS is part of a larger organization which is headquartered in Mississippi. I don't see any ramifications to that. It's just an interesting fact.

As always, more questions than answers.

I'll keep digging and keep you posted.

From the field.

Dora

Testimony Regarding the Community Values Statement

At about 12:30 PM on Thursday, January 21st , I received a forwarded e-mail from our school PTSA president that had been originally sent the night before at 9:20 PM.

The original e-mail was from our Seattle Council PTSA President asking all of the school PTSA Presidents to read the attached document and have someone at the meeting that next evening to vote on the document. That document was the Community Values’ Statement.

This was the first time that I had heard of or had an opportunity to read the document and yet we were requested to vote on it that evening. We ultimately got two minutes each to discuss the document before it was voted on. As Legislative Chair of Nova PTSA, I abstained from voting because I had questions and concerns about the document and they are as follows:

The first sentence is “Every classroom is led by an effective teacher”.

That sounds innocuous enough but how do you measure effective teaching? Within the education reform movement, the term “effective” is used when discussing measuring a teacher’s performance by using student assessment testing. The next step after this testing is awarding teachers who are more “effective” with bonuses or higher pay. This is referred to as “merit pay”.

And the second sentence is, “Evaluate principals and teachers using multiple measures that include student performance.”

How do you measure the effectiveness of a teacher based on a student’s performance? Whether they get A’s or B’s in their classes? Do you review the student’s portfolio? Or, do you give them a test? More than likely, most people would have the students take a test. It’s less expensive and seemingly efficient. With Governor Gregoire pressing our state legislators to approve specific aspects of the Race to the Top requirements, one of those requirements being merit pay, this sentence just gives them the perfect reason to vote for such a bill.

When we moved to Washington from California, I decided that we would live on Mercer Island based mainly on WASL scores. Little did I know what the price was to get such high test scores. The focus was on that test and little more. There was no time for creative thinking that used a synthesis of different thoughts and ideas, there was only one way to solve a problem. A lot of stress was put on the students to do well on the test and they did perform but at a price.

The material is dumbed down and it’s a matter of memorization with no understanding of the larger picture.

That’s why my daughter goes to Nova now.

What we really need to be looking at is supporting our teachers by creating smaller class sizes, better and adequate materials for their classes and a pleasant and safe environment for them to work in, not merit pay based on student testing.

D.

Notes From the Field:The Garfield PTSA Meeting, Curriculum Alignment, CAN, Read/Write and "Teacher Effectiveness"

A friend asked me to go to the Garfield meeting to listen to Dr. Goodloe-Johnson speak about the curriculum alignment in math. Because I live across the street from Garfield and I’m always up for more information about our schools, I agreed to go and take notes for them.

Ah, Garfield. I will not go on about the renovation but at sometime everyone needs to just walk into the front door and check it out. It never ceases to amaze me how much money was spent on that building.

To add insult to injury, when I walked in they were painting the walls in the cafeteria! The same color! I didn’t see any damage to the walls and could not understand why they were doing that. After they finish up there, they need to get over to the Meaney building and do a little scraping, patching and painting of those walls. Those walls have peeling paint and we won’t EVEN talk about the color.

But, I was not there to review the décor, I was there to take notes about our math and science curriculum alignment and I was ready, pen in hand.

Blum and Sundquist were there and so was the Executive Director of SEA, Glenn Bafia.

First there was the PTSA business and then an introduction to our superintendent.

There was a handout that Dr. Goodloe-Johnson referred to that I was able to obtain, they ran out. It is, according to DGJ, on the SPS website and it is titled “Strengthening Talent in Every Seattle School/ January 2010”. OK, I’m ready.

Well first of all, let me say that our superintendent can read well and very quickly. She read through those bullet points at an impressive pace. There was no time for interjection or questions. After the first set of bullet points, while she was catching her breath, a parent asked a question. Whoa, what timing!

Now I will give you my bullet points from my notes regarding this part of the conversation:

MGJ stated that there was a “Validation Process” that a suggested course could go through to ensure that it met the requirements for core curriculum.

There would be a manager for each subject such as a “Science Manager” who would oversee the process.

There would also be a manager for the Advanced Learning Department.

Then there were a lot of questions about the math and science core curriculum but DGJ said that she was not prepared to answer those questions. Well, that’s too bad because that’s why we were all there, including me.

Then there were a few questions about the graduation requirements and the core curriculum but again, DGJ did not have that information. She said that we could get it “on the web”.

Well, moving right along. At this point a member of the Garfield Foundation got up and fielded a question about an accelerated Science program. He said that a student could take an exam to bypass a particular core curriculum class but that it would be discussed in the future. Apparently that has not been worked out yet.

Next there was a presentation to DGJ about the Read/Write program that seems to be successful at Garfield. We were told that about 100 students at Garfield can read only up to the 4th grade level. Because of the number of students and the lack of funds, they are not able to meet the needs of these students and that there is a wait list. Some of these students will not be able to participate in the program and will graduate reading at that lower level. The presenter said that it takes about one semester to get the students up to their grade level. They were requesting support for this program by SPS.

Wow. Awesome program! Maybe the Alliance could pitch in here and use some of those thousands that it’s thrown away on the NCTQ report and save these children. Or maybe Mr. Gates could throw a few million this way instead of spending his money on creating more assessment tests for our kids.

The next program is the “CAN”, College Access Network”, program that is at Garfield, West Seattle and Franklin. It has been successful at placing almost 100% of its’ students into colleges. The Garfield PTSA was requesting support for this program also.

DGJ said that she had not seen the request but would review it.

The next item on the agenda was, here we go again, “Teacher effectiveness, hiring and retention”, one of my favorite subjects.

It was stated, by the PTSA Co-chair, that we lost many of our good teachers because of the rif (the rif that I still don’t see the point of since just about everyone was hired back. The district knew that there were 1,200 students over-enrolled in April and yet they were determined to rif teachers. Whose fault was that, the teachers’ union or bad management on part of our administration? More to follow on my theory later.)

I caught the quote “Ineffective teachers in front of the classroom” from the co-chair. So this is the crux of our entire problem, bad teachers and the union. Wow, how simple, or simplistic, the answer must be. Where we are in education, of course, would not have anything to do with class size, the socio-economic situation of many of our students, buildings that are too hot or too cold to be in, hungry kids, teachers having to deal with not only over-crowded classrooms but special needs students who want to be mainstreamed and children with behavioral issues.

Underfunding? Not even brought up. It’s the teachers.

“Seniority trumps” for good reason, we have “lost many young, good teachers” How many? Most of them were brought back. And the final question to DGJ, “What can we do to make it clear” that we are unhappy with this situation?

DGJ responded that there were avenues to go through but unfortunately I did not write down what she mentioned.

The co-chair piped in again and began to blame the teachers for the lower reading levels. If I was a teacher right now in the SPS system I would be truly upset at this time. They are getting blamed for everything, all the ills of the world, and what do they get for it? Low pay, little support, lousy work environment, in most schools at least, not enough materials and books, overcrowded classrooms, need I go on?

Then someone got up and suggested that there be a vote on the last seven bullet points on the handout that had been provided by DGJ. It all looked pretty good if not rather vague. One point did stand out to me though. “Align pay for our instructional professionals to the district’s strategic goals”. Hmmm, what does that mean?

Several people had that same question and concern. Was this another way of introducing the idea of merit pay? Someone ask DGJ if teacher performance should be a factor in evaluating our teachers. Our superintendent responded that there was a four-tiered evaluation process in place that was used.

More discussion ensued and then the superintendent went exit right. I don’t recall her saying good-by but she must have.

The discussion continued and I found it to be interesting and provocative. There should be more discussions like this one. Unfortunately it didn’t happen at the Seattle PTSA meeting when the powers that be were pushing through a similar statement called the Community Values’ Statement.

I won’t go into the details but it did eventually come down to a vote on supporting the bullet points and it was split down the middle. 27 yes, 14 against and 13 abstaining (not enough info or too vague).

Interesting evening, glad I went.

By the way, the acoustics in the cafeteria are horrendous. Next time I would suggest meeting in the library.

Signing off for now.

D