January 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

VIVA Teachers leader Xian Barrett in Education Week

Channel Student’s Energy to Social-Justice Projects

Commentary By Xian Barrett

Imagine your own beautiful child in a moment of anger, miscommunication, or poor judgment. Imagine if instead of a scolding, loving redirection, or a discussion of how to make better decisions, your pride and joy was handcuffed, whisked off to jail, and denied any likelihood of college or future gainful employment. In Chicago, for many parents, this is the daily reality.

On the other hand, imagine students directing that energy for youthful indiscretion toward surveying and working to improve our communities. Imagine students collaborating with other young people and allies on projects for social change. What difference could that make?

Click here to read the full commentary on Education Week

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January 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Press Release on VIVA Report from Iowa State Education Assocation

ISEA releases report on What Leadership Roles Should Teachers Play?
Hundreds of educators participated in idea exchange

DES MOINES, IA (01/10/2013)(readMedia)– Hundreds of educators participated in a groundbreaking, online idea exchange utilizing a combination of technologies which sought to answer the question, “how would you envision a greater role for teacher leadership in schools?” Members of the larger discussion group were then invited to craft the broad ideas into a report.

The Iowa State Education Association (ISEA), working with VIVA Teachers, a nonprofit organization whose goal is to raise teachers’ voices in education policy, launched an online discussion October 8 through October 30, 2012. All ISEA members were asked to share their ideas in answer to the following questions:

How would you envision a greater role for teacher leadership in your school or district and what needs to change in school culture to motivate educators to take on a bigger leadership role? How would it help students if educators had a bigger leadership role in schools and what do you think is the appropriate reward system for educators who step up to leadership roles?

In response to the questions, over 1,000 ISEA members visited the site, and 316 ISEA members added ideas in the discussion spending hundreds of hours refining them into 17 solutions for creating Teacher Leadership roles that would lead to improved student learning. The distilled ideas were used to create the report.

“We have been frustrated that those who are the most critical about education are not present in the classroom. We worked with VIVA teachers to allow a way for educators to discuss real-life examples of what ideas would work and what might not work. When you read the report you can see the practical application of some of the ideas being suggested. That’s what’s been missing in many of the details – the practical side of things,” said Tammy Wawro, president of the ISEA. “We’re proud of this report because it’s a great example of what our members can do if they are asked to be at the table during the discussions,” Wawro added.

Among the many ideas generated was tasking Teacher Leaders with liaising between the school and families; making the Teacher Leader the point person on Developing Instructional Strategies for Common Core Implementation; and using the Teacher Leaders as a resource for promoting best practices and Professional Development.

Re-Imagining School Leadership for the 21st Century will be used as guidance for discussions when the topic of teacher leadership and compensation is debated this legislative session. See the finished report, Re-Imagining School Leadership for the 21st Century.

Click here to view this press release on the ISEA website.

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January 14, 2013 By 8 Comments

Common Core in 2013: Facts from Fiction

By Beth Hillerns

The Common Core Standards are making their way into more and more schools and classrooms, and their implementation seem to be causing nearly as much controversy as their adoption. One of those controversies is the requirement that by 12th grade, students should be reading 70 percent nonfiction and 30 percent fiction.

This surprises me — not the requirement, but the controversy. The goal of the Common Core is to have students be college and career ready by graduation. Most of the reading I did in college and now do for my career is nonfiction, so the percentages don’t seem out of line with the goal. Apparently, though, some people have interpreted the nonfiction/fiction split to represent what should be taking place in the English classroom and not across the school day. I think this interpretation is a serious mistake.

There is a lot that could be controversial in the Common Core, but the nonfiction/fiction split should not be. Instead I think this issue highlights some serious organizational problems in our schools.

Problem #1 – Our teachers are isolated. Often the only interaction teachers have with their peers is in the staff lounge or parking lot.

Problem #2 – Reading skills across the content areas are not adequately supported. Although the Common Core specifically addresses reading in the content areas (social studies and science in particular), many teachers still view them as just language arts and math standards – the domain of those teachers.

Problem #3 – There is a misunderstanding of textbooks as curriculum. Textbooks should be one resource for teachers, but other sources should be included and other texts read by students. Too often, teachers have to find resources on their own, with their own time and money, if they choose. This leads to dry, uninspiring reading.

As long as these problems persist, teachers will find it challenging to implement the Common Core reading requirements across the school day. To address these problems, school districts can do three things:

Solution #1 – Facilitate peer observations as an integral part of our profession. Teachers in one another’s classrooms should be commonplace. This will help teachers learn from one another and know more about how to work together to implement standards that are integrated, not isolated.

Solution #2 – Employ literacy coaches. Literacy coaches can provide knowledge and demonstration of reading strategies and instruction to teachers who are already experts in their content area. They can also provide opportunities for effective peer observation.

Solution #3 – Use texts in addition to textbooks. Give teachers (individually or through a curriculum committee) the time to find texts that address their standards and the resources to provide these texts to students. A literacy coach can facilitate this process.

As our world becomes more integrated, we cannot afford to let our schools remain places of isolation. We’ve got to pay attention to the big picture first. The fact is, teachers can work together to implement standards across the curriculum.

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January 11, 2013 By 4 Comments

NY State Teacher Debate: Professionals or Bureaucrats?

By Mark Anderson

The American people have rightly lost confidence in their elected leaders; ideology appears to trump fundamental necessities of governance.

Here in NYC, I have similarly lost confidence in both Mayor Bloomberg and UFT President Michael Mulgrew to represent my interests, nor those of my students.

A lot of money is currently in jeopardy due to the standoff between the UFT and the Mayor over teacher evaluations. As with recent skirmishing in our nation’s capitol in the face of the “fiscal cliff,” it bears questioning as to how such matters of consequence could be allowed to come down to the wire due to grandstanding and partisanship.

The Mayor’s attitude on a recent radio broadcast was cavalier:

“If we can’t come to an agreement, it’s going to be very painful,” Bloomberg told host John Gambling on his weekly Friday radio show. “But the city’s certainly not going to sign on to any agreement that isn’t a real evaluation agreement, and one that can be monitored by the public.”

What is a “real evaluation agreement,” according to Bloomberg? Apparently only one that releases a teacher’s ratings to the public.

Mayor Bloomberg seems more concerned with ostracizing teachers than with creating a system of evaluation that will promote growth oriented professional learning environments and student achievement.

On the other side, we have UFT President Michael Mulgrew, who penned an incensed letter to the Mayor:

The Department of Education’s demonstrated inability to manage the school system correctly has led us to have serious concerns about getting anything constructive done with you.

Who can blame Mulgrew for having “serious concerns” about getting anything accomplished with a Mayor who compares his union to the NRA? But Mulgrew’s righteous beginning is subverted by what follows:

Two and half years ago the state decided to change this year’s standardized tests to the Common Core standards and since then you have done nothing to create a curriculum based on the Common Core. You have now left teachers in a horrendous situation where they are scrambling to try to get material appropriate for these new tests to teach their children.

I don’t know about other teachers, but I shudder to think of what kind of curriculum the NYC DOE would “create.” That’s the last thing I want to see happen, when the opportunity is here for curriculum to be developed from the ground up by classroom teachers.

How should teachers be viewed? Are we professionals, scholars, and experts of our content areas and capable of growth through reflection and collegial feedback? Or are we mere public employees, clamoring for our administration to tell us how and what we are to teach?

I’d prefer to be viewed as a professional educator that is part of a vibrant, dedicated community of professional learners and scholars. Unfortunately, that perspective is not something that seems to be shared by either of the elected officials that would purport to represent me.

They seem more interested in winning out against their political opponents. It’s the rest of us who will lose.

Mark Anderson is a 7th and 8th grade Special Education teacher in the Bronx.

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January 2, 2013 By 4 Comments

Education Reform: Teachers Have Always Been at the Forefront

By Mary Cathryn Ricker

I was intrigued by Jay Mathews’ Washington Post column that proclaims “Teachers leaning in favor of reforms.” I do appreciate that he points out he has never once written about unions hindering reform, even if he back-hands the compliment with “that is not the same as saying the unions have worked hard to make all teachers more successful in the classroom.”

That is where I part very good company with him.

I appreciate the parsing of teacher’s feelings toward current education hot topics in the research he sites by Teach Plus and Education Sector. As the current president of my teacher’s union in St. Paul, Minnesota it is helpful to learn what teachers are saying and thinking both, individually and locally, and in the aggregate.

However, I have a fairly unique view, as a teacher serving as a local union president and a third generation teacher in my family, which leads me to a couple questions and a couple points I would like to make about teachers “leaning in favor of reforms.”

Supporting Education Reform

Because this research is a snapshot in time, it is impossible to say whether these attitudes captured by Teach Plus and Education Sector are new or not. In my family and in the historic local teacher’s union I have the privilege of serving, these attitudes are not new.

Someday we will have longitudinal research that either proves this group of newer teachers is somehow unique, or it will prove what I have experienced anecdotally: that teachers, and our unions, have always had a bias for improving teaching and learning conditions. Indeed, it was because I saw up close these examples of acting within a union to improve teaching and learning that I ran for president of my union, rather than get an administrative credential or take some other job, when I felt ready to lead with new ideas of mine and my colleagues’.

My Dad, Union President and Reformer

I saw my dad, and his generation, fight for adequate preparation time so I could build on that by advocating for increased professional learning time. His generation built salary schedules that honored years of expertise and graduate specialties so that we could come along and create leadership opportunities that don’t force a teacher to choose between leading or teaching.

The work done by teachers in their unions before me to recognize National Board Certification paved the way for others to design other differentiated pay structures. We can entertain a serious discussion about the AFT’s bar exam idea precisely because of the professional ideas to improve teaching and learning brought to the table year after year by many leaders who have come before us raising the bar for teacher standards over time from high school diploma to some college to a full credential. There wouldn’t be this notion of rethinking tenure, or due process, if there hadn’t been progress from capricious, political, sexist at-will status to fair due process in the first place.

Examples of Union-Supported Reforms

In the Saint Paul Federation of Teachers we have been doing things like:

  • Designing our own alternative licensure program to diversify our profession and fill hard-to-staff license areas
  • Expanding the professional development opportunities we started offering more than 25 years ago
  • Expanding our parent/teacher home visit project
  • Negotiating contract language to strengthen our peer assistance and review program and evaluation
  • Offering alternatives to seniority to protect the integrity of programs we offer our students.

We’re doing all of that with our ultimate goal of making our contract the most powerful document our district has to attract, support and retain a high-quality, diverse workforce that knows how to meet the needs of our students and families.

None of this would have been possible if it wasn’t for the teacher union leadership that came before us. None of it.

I appreciate the acknowledgement that Jay Mathews was trying to offer, but I caution him about painting the last 150+ years of St. Paul teachers (and others) as stagnant, versus a recently discovered fountain of youthful teachers suddenly leaning toward reform. The teaching profession has been evolving since it started. Each generation has added something, built on the work of the generation before.

Teachers have always leaned toward reform except, of course, for those times when we’ve been leading it.

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December 20, 2012 By 1 Comment

VIVA MTA Project- Addressing Educational Inequities: Proposals for Narrowing the Achievement Gaps in Massachusetts’ Gateway Cities

Download Full Report as a PDF

On June 23, 2012, members of the VIVA MTA Writing Collaborative presented their ideas to the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. The process continued on Aug. 5, when the teachers presented a revised version of their report, incorporating suggestions from MTA Board members.

Download a copy of “Addressing Educational Inequities: Proposals for Narrowing the Achievement Gaps in Massachusetts’ Gateway Cities.”

Executive Summary

Massachusetts Gateway Cities have a high percentage of residents living in poverty, growing immigrant populations and multiple language-minority residents. The tremendously dedicated classroom teachers in these communities and the Massachusetts Teachers Association recommend that Gateway Cities work together to share resources, address common challenges and advocate for more financial support.

Our goal as teachers is the education of creative and critical thinkers. Our students deserve to learn the skills that we use to be successful: critical thinking, adaptability and a whole host of others. Our current system makes choices for students: what they learn, when they learn it, and even how well they are capable of learning in general. A powerful education system should have different characteristics. Instead of making choices for our students, we should be empowering them to make their own choices. Students are not buckets to be filled with information. They are fires to be lit.

Teachers are already working on this change. There are thousands of dedicated teachers who strive every day to get their students to read, write, think and apply their knowledge. They are not always supported. Some teachers need to bend the rules, sneaking in labs or writing projects in circumstances where they have been instructed to give practice tests and multiple-choice exams. When every teacher in a district is directed to follow the same timeline
and scripted curriculum, then student questions and student engagement are not driving instruction. This is not a sustainable model of education. If we hope to help our students, to narrow the achievement gaps and to improve the quality of life in our Gateway Cities, we need policies to reflect the intensely personal and provocative nature of education. We need our schools to be growth-focused communities of learners.

Recommendations

Expand language acquisition programs by valuing the existing multilingualism in our Gateway Cities schools and enabling all students to achieve fluency in a second language.

Break the school-to-prison pipeline through student engagement programs focused on positive behavior outcomes.

Transform teacher preparation and professional development to ensure that all teachers are prepared to address the challenges of a diverse student population; then give teachers the autonomy to apply professional knowledge and skills in their classrooms.

Strengthen school-community relationships.

Lengthen the school day and reorganize the school year to better serve students.

Focus the existing Gateway Cities Coalition on identifying and sharing resources to support the recommendations in this report.

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December 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A teacher on Newtown shooting: Ensuring all voices are heard

While flying home from a meeting other educators at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, I find myself looking down over the snow-capped mountaintops and fluffy clouds thinking about teachers and voice.

I am filled with empathy for voices recently and violently snuffed out – teachers, a principal, and 20 children at an elementary school in Connecticut. This hits very close to home. I am a teacher and a principal. My life is filled with students, those with whom I work and my own children.

This is also taking me back to the horrible days following the 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, where I live. It is true that I cannot truly understand the pain of losing a child or a parent to gun violence. But I can understand how deeply a community is injured by this type of act. The violence of January 8 remains an enigma to me, as I am sure the violence of these past days will be to the community of Newtown, Connecticut.

So, the question becomes: How to respond? My answer, at least a part of it, is using my voice.

I have been fortunate to have had a number of chances lately to use my voice. Through VIVA Teachers, two presentations at national conferences, and on the local news, I have been able to make sure my voice is heard.

Promoting Student Voice
When thinking about the students and teachers with whom I work, I often find myself wanting to create opportunities for them to use their voices. I certainly hear this phrase frequently around the education community. Nevertheless, my thinking keeps going back to the idea that every one has a voice of his or her own.

It is not up to me, as a teacher, to give students a voice. Instead, it is up to me to make sure that I do not silence the voices they already have. To paraphrase the words of one of my educational inspirations, Louise Rosenblatt, it is important for us as teachers to make sure we are creating opportunities for students to imagine beyond their lived experiences. That means getting them to read both deeply and widely, to think critically, to use their voices. All of those are necessary for them to evolve into the kind of thinking, empathetic, participatory citizens we all need to make our democracy work.

Speak Up to Make a Difference
I continue to learn that it is important to introduce my voice as a teacher into the conversation frequently and with purpose. This is true whether I am in line at the grocery store and hear people talking about teachers, students and schooling or representing VIVA Teachers when meeting with policy makers.

Much like our students, our voices are ours. Our voices need to be part of the larger conversationn happening around education in a way that is real, experienced-based and practical.

There is nothing preventing us, except perhaps the belief that it won’t make a difference. I don’t know that our voices will always make a difference; but, I know for sure that standing silent ensures that will be true.

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December 19, 2012 By 5 Comments

VIVA ISEA Project – Re-Imagining School Leadership for the 21st Century

Download Full Report as a PDF

On December 8, 2012,  members of the VIVA ISEA Teachers Idea Exchange  presented their report Re-Imagining School Leadership for the 21st Century to the board of the Iowa State Education Association. On December 19, 2012,  they presented their ideas to members of Governor Brandstad’s administration.

Download a copy of “Re-Imagining School Leadership for the 21st Century” here.

Executive Summary

Schools of the 21st century cannot be run by principals alone. The stakes—the education of our children and the future of our state—are too high. We must tap the best and brightest among us to be school leaders if we are to give all students the high quality education they deserve.

The leaders of the state of Iowa have recognized this and are looking for ways to entice teachers to take on more leadership responsibilities within schools. We know that teachers are ready for this new challenge. The key is to create a system that allows them to stay firmly rooted in the classroom while also working to meet the bigger needs of the school or district overall.

This report lays out 17 ideas for ways to make Teacher Leadership a sought-after and effective way to run schools. By creating a role for teachers that is something more than classroom instruction but something less than administration, the state can get the best of both worlds: teachers who remain committed to serving their students while also sharing their skills and expertise with others. That is the way to grow the leadership needed to ensure student learning improves.

Recommendations Included in this report:

To be successful, Teacher Leaders must have the confidence of faculty members and administrators. That would be much more likely happen if the Teacher Leaders were chosen via a process that includes input from both teachers and administrators.

While there are many potential Teacher Leadership roles in school—among them modeling best instructional practice, mentoring new teachers, liaising with families, and helping teachers prepare for their evaluations—all roles must be clearly defined to ensure they do not cross into the realm of purely administrative tasks.

Teacher Leaders can provide a low-cost, more effective professional development by using their unique positions in the school or district to disseminate best practice ideas and differentiate professional development to fit the needs of each individual teacher and school.

Teacher Leaders, Teacher Mentors, and Model Teachers can be effective only if they know that their students will continue to thrive academically while their teachers are away performing Teacher Leadership duties. This can easily be accomplished through a variety of approaches, including hiring “permanent subs” for a building or district and bringing in retired teachers as subs.

 Teacher Leaders must be compensated adequately for the additional time they spend fulfilling their leadership duties.

 

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December 16, 2012 By 2 Comments

A teacher on Newtown shooting: A time for somber reflection

Lauren Rosseau, a teacher killed in Newtown, CT.   Source: AP


By Kathleen Sullivan

I’m still trying to digest the news from today. As teacher, it is truly the unfathomable. How could this happen to these babies? How does this happen in a school where we are suppose to feel safe and where we are entrusted with people’s most precious gifts of life, their children.

It doesn’t matter if you are in an urban community where gun crime seems commonplace or a quaint, seemingly safe New England town. The truth is, if someone is set on committing such a heinous act,it will happen.   Today, I had my 5th graders and a group of kindergartners in my room at the end of the day for “book buddies.” This innocent interaction between these two groups had extra special meaning today. The “big kids” were taking care of the “little kids” and we, as teachers, watched over them.

There is no sense in trying to “make sense” of this.  How do we make sense of the beauty of natural wonders? How do we make sense of one human being causing so much pain to other human beings? No answers really suffice. They just are.

Families have lost loved ones. A nation mourns for those children and the others lost today.  A time for reflection…

Kathleen Sullivan teaches 5th grade science at a public school in Malden, Massachusetts.

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December 12, 2012 By 1 Comment

Ed Policy: Fiscal Cliff or a Precipitous Abyss?

By: Melody Rivera

“A number of nations are out-educating us today in the STEM disciplines—and if we as a nation don’t turn that around, those nations will soon be out-competing us in a knowledge-based, global economy.” This was the U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan’s recent statement on the results of the 2011 TIMSS and PIRLS Assessments and their potential impact on our nation’s future.

Mr. Duncan’s concern comes at a time when the U.S. is facing the fiscal cliff and its potential to evoke economic disaster across the U.S. Although some financial gurus say the fiscal cliff is more of a slope, the fact is that in the world of education this is set to be a precipitous abyss laden with failure.

According to Dennis Van Roekel, President of the National Education Association, the federal cuts in education of 8.2% and $4.8 billion will affect 9 million students. The budget cuts to all federal discretionary spending programs will mean even less help for an already struggling American learning system. Van Roekel also said the cuts in education will impact 98% of American public school students so that the wealthiest 2% can have a tax break.

Programs that would be cut include:

• Title 1 education programs that aid low income students
• IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), which supports the education of special needs students
• Language Acquisition state grants, which aid English language learning students
• Rural Education Achievement Program, which helps small, rural school districts
• Improving Teacher Quality Education, which contributes to the professional development of our teachers.

It’s time to ask lawmakers: At what cost is this nation ‘saving’ money? Is an ignorant nation with only the wealthiest 2% receiving the chance at equal
education the price we must pay to get America out of this fiscal gorge?

Let’s ask Finland, Singapore, Canada and South Korea whether these were the fundamental steps they took when they decided to improve their educational
systems and surpass us in global education rankings.

Since teacher professional development is crucial to implement the new federal mandates of the Teacher Evaluation and Common Core Standards, I feel pinned against the wall as an educator. I am mandated by federal law to adhere to both federal mandate laws and although I was promised professional development to ensure my success and transition to comply with these programs, funding for help with such transition may be eliminated.

The kind of loss in education funding the federal government proposes to “fix” our economic turmoil, will continue to yield ignorance across our nation. As a world language classroom teacher, I will face the reality of the cuts first hand, as some of the proposed cuts would affect language acquisition programs in my home state of Massachusetts. It’s an understatement to say that I am deeply concerned and appalled at the prospect of cutting back funding on education at a time when we need it the most.

What saddens me the most is that once again, the students negatively affected will be those in our urban and rural school systems who depend on federal funding for their education. And here we are again, back to the topic of poverty and its impact on the success or failure of U.S. education.

Melody Rivera is a World Language Teacher in the Chicopee, MA school district.

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