Fleecing the flock

Posted by Slim

Here’s another insightful article from www.teachers4change.net about the CCEA pursuing its own agenda at the (literal) expense of teachers. While selling teachers out in Carson City by blocking statutory protections, administrative harassment is good for union business, they’re fleecing the flock. If you don’t believe, just follow the wool.

Where the Money Went

Here is the story you have waited for.

I know, it seems ridiculous that CCEA would be doing this while refusing to represent teachers and negotiate a decent contract. We hope you really think about the implications of what they are doing.

According to several Clark County Education Association officials, the money in question has been accounted for. Yes, we’re talking about the mysterious whereabouts of those exorbitant tuition fees drained from the pockets of hard-working teachers for the Center for Teacher Excellence program, also known as Advanced Studies Certification. In a recent conversation with union insiders, it was revealed that Executive Director John Jasonek has commented he would be more than happy to show the public the union books on CTE. However, he doesn’t, according to our sources, want the public or the union rank-and-file to view CCEA’s overall operating books. Apparently he explained to several officers at a CCEA Senate and Executive Board meeting that the union has $1,000,000 tucked away in various accounts, so the UniServ representatives won’t know about the extra money. (Yes, that’s one million dollars!) It seems these UniServ reps have been seeking raises, and Jasonek has different plans for the stashed cash. Remember the CTE program? It’s the one where teachers paid $3,600 to receive a $3,000 raise; while the state-run program, RPDP, had been charging $810 for the same teacher raise.

After months of Teachers4Change following this pile of money, some courageous teachers have started coming forward with revelatory information. As usual, CCEA tried to close ranks to cover up the dirt in this story, typical of their behavior, but, in this case, they haven’t been able to keep the truth from coming out. Executive Director Jasonek in a board meeting was heard telling the audience that CCEA is using CTE money for a union building fund. Apparently CCEA wants to build an ivory tower to house their hard-working association officers. The idea is to house all union facilities in one central location-- i.e. Association Offices, Teachers Health Trust, etc. Considering what a fine job the union has done to serve the interests of teachers for the past eight years (we jest!), this building fund may be a tough pill to swallow for the average, suffering rank-and-file teacher.

While teachers are trying desperately to figure out how to climb up a last notch on the already-pathetic teacher pay scale by meeting the heavy financial requirement of the CTE program, CCEA is saving for a brand-spanking-new building from the pockets of these teachers. Even further, teachers who are not union members and taking these CTE classes are also contributing significantly to the CCEA building fund. According to one source, Jasonek was happy to report that non-union teachers would be, unwittingly, bankrolling the new CCEA building. In fact, the source said, that was one of Jasonek’s main selling points. And what do you think the name of the new union building is going to be? Hmmm. Does the name Jasonek ring a bell?

Maybe the time has come for teachers (both members and non-members) to bring
a halt to deception like this. Isn’t it bad enough teachers keep coming out on the bottom, over and over again, with this union in charge? Perhaps the time is here for teachers to start paving a new road; to head in a different direction. Because teachers deserve so much better than what they’ve been getting from CCEA.

Nevada legislative monkey business

Posted by Slim

While the federal gorilla struggles with NCLB tuxedo, there’s been some interesting monkey business in the Nevada State Legislature. There’s a reason Carson City has never found it necessary to build a zoo. The state provides one of its own every 2 years, creating a jungle of bureaucracy that could qualify Carson City as Nevada’s only rainforest while ignoring badly needed education reforms.

www.teachers4change.net has parted the foliage to reveal the teachers’ union interests and that of teachers are NOT the same.

Who Killed The Teachers' Bill of Rights?

However, by far the more important issue is who caused AB459’s untimely death and forced its withdrawal. My knowledge and research of many events, experience and observance during the past two years make me believe that this killing of AB459 was committed by the CCEA at the insistence of the Clark County School District. The basis of this belief/position is the following.

1. For months, Mr. Segerblom has told me we needed just one Senate Republican vote to get this bill through the Senate as he would be able to get all the Democrats. It was my responsibility as a Republican to get at least the one Republican vote. I worked hard on this from November to May 16, and it appeared at the end we may have had the one Republican vote--better yet, it was on the Senate Education Committee. The degree of difficulty with the Republicans was not their unwillingness to help teachers but justified animosity toward the teachers’ union.

2. On May 9 at the Senate hearing, Mr. Segerblom reaffirmed we were definitely “very close” to winning if we could get the one Republican vote.

3. On May 9 at the hearing, it appeared the CCSD was quite concerned at losing the Senate vote as they put on a full-scale “dog and pony show” urging the Bill’s defeat with numerous witnesses from several educational organizations, CCSD’s lead counsel, a representative of the administrators’ union, and CCSD’s chief lobbyist. School Board members were present in Carson City and in the Las Vegas audience, and there was at least one major CCSD employee at the hearing. They had both rooms stacked and at the hearing one Republican on the committee made statements that had to cause concern to the CCSD. AT THIS HEARING NEITHER THE CCEA NOR THE NSEA SPOKE IN FAVOR OF THE BILL NOR ADVOCATED FOR IT IN ANY WAY.

4. Within days thereafter (May 12), I received good information that at least one Democrat on the Committee was going to vote against the Bill. That Senator is the one who owes her election entirely to the teachers’ union and teachers money as the union contributed approximately $350,000 of teachers’ dues money to get her elected even though she was at the time employed by the CCSD. Wouldn’t you think that the union could get her vote if they wanted to?

5. In my May 16 pointed conversation with Mr. Segerblom, he emotionally informed me that every Democrat on the committee (Weiner, Horsford, and Woodhouse) were going to vote against the bill guaranteeing its defeat. Some of his other comments about the union and other matters were enough to tell me the union had let him down and put him in a position that he had to walk away from the Bill and not force a vote in the Committee. I ask you and the world who else but the teachers’ union has such power over an Assembly Education Committee Chairperson and an Assemblyman Bill sponsor who has guided the bill to a 42-0 vote in the Assembly to force the killing of this Bill by withdrawal.

6. It is clearly evident that the beneficiaries of this effort by the teachers’ union is the Clark County School District and the three Democrat Senators on the Committee who were saved from having to vote. I do not believe that the four Republican members of the committee were at all hesitant to vote.

7. Most condemning of the teachers’ union is that we know that in important prior acts it has favored the CCSD over its dues paying teacher members.

Conclusion--I am more convinced than ever that the teachers of the Clark County School District have no friends in the education system in Clark County. Even the Nevada PTA with enthusiasm spoke against the bill at the recent hearing though two of its past presidents (Parnell and Smith) and its incoming President (Mo Dennis) as members of the Assembly voted for the Bill. In my well-considered opinion CCSD teachers should now consider four possible actions. These are:

a) Seek and obtain employment elsewhere. b) If you stay teaching in Clark County, seek out union representation other than the CCEA/NSEA as it is foolish to keep spending over $600 per year to have that money used to work against you. In this process be very careful that all your union needs and coverages are secure and safe before making such a change. As a disclaimer, I do not recommend, support, nor am I affiliated with any union of any type. c) Turn your frustration into “action energy” and support with participation all efforts to bring relief to Clark County teachers, and d) If for no better reason than humanity, get the word to teachers that are considering coming to the CCSD to be aware of the teacher abuse problems and issues in the CCSD.

Sincerely,
Charles E. Thompson

What are your thoughts about NCLB and gorillas in tuxedos?

Posted by Slim

Watching the feds struggle with education reminds me of a gorilla getting into a tuxedo. It can be done, but it is not natural and serves only a superficial purpose.

Education Week

House Freshmen Could Be Pivotal on NCLB Renewal

Some opposed the law on campaign trail, but have refined their views.

By Alyson Klein

Last fall, when New Hampshire social worker Carol Shea-Porter was a long-shot candidate for Congress, she told voters she wanted to scrap the No Child Left Behind Act and get the federal government largely out of the business of school accountability.

Now, U.S. Rep. Shea-Porter, a Democrat who pulled off an upset victory in November, says she’s willing to give a second look to the federal education law that she once referred to as an attempt by right-wing Republicans to “undermine our confidence in our public schools.”

But in taking that second look, she and other freshmen seem likely to have the leverage to help reshape some provisions that concern them. And they’re signaling that their support can’t be taken for granted.

Many of the other 41 freshman Demo-crats in the U.S. House of Representatives criticized the 5-year-old No Child Left Behind law while on the campaign trail as an unfunded federal mandate that forces schools to narrow their instruction so that students can pass standardized tests.

But like their New Hampshire colleague, many of those members are now seeking common ground with key Democratic architects of the NCLB law, most notably Rep. George Miller of California, the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. For his part, Rep. Miller must build support among the newest members of his caucus, particularly the 10 freshman Democrats on the education committee, including Rep. Shea-Porter.

The law, which passed Congress with big, bipartisan majorities in late 2001, is up for reauthorization this year.

“I think they’re a key group that he will have to accommodate,” Jack Jennings, a former Democratic counsel to the House education committee, said of Chairman Miller and his new members. “They’re large; they’re the reason the Democrats are in the majority.”

Ear to the Ground
Mr. Jennings, who is now the president of the Center on Education Policy, a research and advocacy group in Washington, said the need to work with freshmen might be part of the reason Rep. Miller has yet to introduce a comprehensive NCLB reauthorization measure. “I think he would have charged ahead” otherwise, he said.

Freshman members say Rep. Miller is open to their views.
“George Miller has said that at one point he was very resistant to [making] many changes” to the law, Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., an education committee member, said in an interview. “But in our discussions with him, he understands that there are things that need to be fixed, and he’s open to a thorough discussion and any ideas” the newcomers present, the freshman congressman said.

Rep. Shea-Porter, who won with 51 percent of the vote, defeating incumbent Rep. Jeb Bradley, said she’s had frank conversations with Rep. Miller about her concerns over the NCLB law. He even visited her district last month and met with educators and state lawmakers there.

The congresswoman says she’s willing to see what sort of reauthorization proposals the education committee puts forth before deciding whether to support renewing the law at all.
“I’m in a holding pattern,” she said in an interview last month.

There are nine newly elected U.S. sensators who caucus with the Democrats, but most of them weren’t as critical of the NCLB law during the 2006 campaigns as some House Democrats were.

Despite their desire to reach accord on renewing the NCLB law, many freshman Democrats in the House continue to use heated rhetoric to describe the law. And a few haven’t completely given up on the idea of repealing many of its provisions.

“Reform is definitely on the agenda. Repeal probably is not, but could be if we mount a strong enough effort,” Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., said during a conference call last month with voters in his district. The call was sponsored by Communities for Quality Education, a Washington-based education advocacy group.

Other new members expect the law to be reauthorized, but they appear to favor significant changes to it.

Under the law, English-language learners are counted toward a school’s annual achievement targets after they’ve been in U.S. schools for one year. Rep. Mazie K. Hirono, D-Hawaii, a freshman member of the education committee, said in an interview that she wants to consider giving such students at least three years to learn English before they must be counted for AYP.

Rep. Hirono, who immigrated to the United States from Japan as a child, said she would have “been deemed a dummy” if she had been tested within a year of her arrival.

United Front
Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., a teacher on leave from Mankato, Minn., said his Democratic colleagues in the freshman class generally feel a “greater sense of urgency” to address issues such as the narrowing of the curriculum and an overemphasis on testing.

“Most of them came through really tough elections,” he said. “Many of them very, very much had their ear to the ground for these issues, so they seem to get it.”

Rep. Walz said he would vote against renewing the law in its current form. Among other changes, he would like to see schools be permitted to use multiple measures, including portfolios of student work, to demonstrate learning outcomes.

But other freshman Democrats were more muted in their comments. “We can’t afford to return to the status quo that existed before NCLB, but we do have to make improvements to the law that will help us move forward,” Rep. Dave Loebsack of Iowa said during a recent conference call with his constituents.

New members of Congress interested in amending the law may be satisfied by some of the proposals for change that Rep. Miller appears likely to favor anyway, said Cynthia G. Brown, the director of education policy at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based research and advocacy group.

Such ideas could include permitting states to use growth models and establishing separate tiers of consequences for schools that miss AYP solely because of a subgroup and those whose student populations as a whole are struggling.

“I think they’ll be a few folks [for whom] that’s not enough,” Ms. Brown said. “But I basically think new members will follow the lead of their chairman.”

Rep. Miller is proposing incentives for schools to improve teacher quality, as well as pushing for more money for Title I. Those moves will help address a major criticism by Democrats that NCLB is underfunded, Ms. Brown said.

Rep. Miller will need to garner as many votes as possible from within his own party, in part because 60 GOP members—including at least four of the 13 freshman Republicans—have signed onto a bill sponsored by Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., that would allow states to opt out of NCLB’S accountability requirements.

Rep. Miller was unavailable to comment for this story, his spokesman, Aaron K. Albright, said last week.

House freshmen have their own incentives to work with Rep. Miller, since he is a leading adviser to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. But perhaps more importantly, after more than a decade in the minority, Democrats believe they must present a united front, now that they’re again in control, Mr. Jennings of the Center on Education Policy said.

“They got the message, being out of power, that they can’t fight among themselves,” Mr. Jennings said.

Some opposed the law on campaign trail, but have refined their views.

Good educators embrace rather than fear the blog

Posted by Slim

Transparency is embraced by the best and feared by the worst. TeacherTalk NV is on the cutting edge of applying the new media nationally and in Nevada.

Education Week

Published in Print: May 2, 2007
Leaders’ Blogs Offer Candid Views on Life In Schools

Principals, district chiefs are venturing into the world of online postings.
By Jeff Archer

Kimberly Moritz, the principal at Gowanda High School in western New York state, had never heard the word “blog” until she learned to set one up at an education conference last July. But when her third posting to her online journal drew 18 comments, she was hooked.

Since then, she’s posted entries two or three times a week, provoking online debates on student cellphone bans, teaching The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, teacher recruitment, and cheating. Comments come from students, teachers, and administrators, near and far.

“It’s very helpful for me professionally, to be able to organize my thoughts on a subject, to write about them, and then hear from my readers,” said Ms. Moritz, 43, whose blog, G-Town Talks, regularly gets hundreds of visitors a day.

Ms. Moritz is part of what, by many accounts, is still just a small community. While the total number of blogs has been pegged at more than 70 million, some experienced education bloggers estimate that the number of school leaders getting in on the act is in the hundreds.

That’s likely to grow, though, as early adopters spread the gospel of blogging. The American Association of School Administrators and the National Association of Elementary School Principals recently held their first sessions on blogging at their annual conventions.

The few principals and superintendents who do blog see great value in the tool. The ease of posting new items on the Web makes for a nimble form of communication. And by allowing public comments, the medium builds relationships—within school communities and among them, they say.

Open Dialogue
To be sure, blogs have pitfalls. They demand frequent updating to bring visitors back again and again. They represent a more open form of dialogue than administrators are used to. Some administrators, in fact, have shut down public commenting when things got out of hand.

Administrators Who Blog …
From Feb. 16, 2007:
“The Worthless Lesson Plan…
I say that we should start a revolution and quit making teachers fill out lesson plans for us but instead prepare for great classroom instruction. … "
Blog: Dr. Jan’s Blog;
Jan Borelli, Principal, Westwood Elementary School, Oklahoma City, Okla.

From March 27, 2007:
“Potential New Hires …
I’m more convinced than ever that teaching requires risk takers, people with passion about something outside of the classroom, like their hockey team, the band they’ve been playing in for years, or fish. … "
Blog: G-Town Talks;
Kimberly Moritz, Principal, Gowanda High School, Gowanda, N.Y.

From Feb. 6, 2007:
“Parent Conference From Across the Globe
… I put him on speaker phone and he participated in the parent conference from Iraq. It was mind-boggling that this father could take the time out from his stressful job in the middle of a war zone to talk with us about how his child was doing in math and reading. … "
Blog: Mr. P’s Blog;
Steve Poling, Principal, DeGrazia Elementary School, Tucson, Ariz.

From Feb. 26, 2007:
“So What Would You Tell the Congressman?
… Someone at the federal decision-making level needs to spend some time IN the classrooms of today and see if this level of ‘accountability’ is worth it. … "
Blog: The Wawascene;
Mark Stock, Superintendent, Wawasee Community Schools, Syracuse, Ind.
SOURCE: Education Week

But Scott McLeod, a Minneapolis-based educational technology expert, said the benefits outweigh the risks. Since last fall, he’s been helping principals set up blogs for free, and in February he started a blog written by administrators called LeaderTalk.

“People are talking about your organizations anyway,” Mr. McLeod said. “Would you rather they talk behind your back, and you don’t know about it? Or, would you rather it be in a way that you can respond to, and have other community members see it?”

Blogs, short for “Web logs,” emerged in the 1990s when new software made it much easier to publish on the Web. That meant individuals could then quickly post their thoughts, and their online readers could just as quickly react to them by posting their own comments.

In the field of education, the first to make the greatest use of blogs were writers, teachers, and technology experts, said James Farmer, the founder of Edublogs, a 2-year-old nonprofit service that hosts about 70,000 education-related blogs. “There are probably only a few hundred school administrators [with blogs], but it’s only a matter of time before it explodes, like it has in every other part of the edublog community,” said Mr. Farmer, who is based in Melbourne, Australia.

Among those principals and superintendents who do blog, the motives vary. Some blog to connect with other administrators facing similar challenges; others see their writing mostly as a way to communicate with their local constituencies.

In January, Mark Stock, the superintendent of the 3,400-student Wawasee community school district in Indiana, used his blog to send out word that students sent to a hospital after a bus accident were not seriously hurt. But he also posts alerts about education policy.

“My opinion comes through, but I’m not over the top with it,” said Mr. Stock, who sometimes conducts informal polls on such topics as the No Child Left Behind Act on his blog, called The Wawascene.

“I let the people on the comments take the sides,” he said. Principals who blog often do so for professional development. For instance, Steve Poling, the principal at DeGrazia Elementary School in Tucson, Ariz., has posted about how he landed his job, his first as a school leader, on his blog, Mr. P Talks.

Meanwhile, a veteran principal, Jan Borelli of Westwood Elementary School in Oklahoma City, offers lessons from more experience on Dr. Jan's Blog. Among her tips: Don’t think of teachers as friends, and don’t try to change anything your first year as principal.

“I’ve been a principal for a lot of years, and I always thought, ‘Man, if someone had just told me that,’ ” said Ms. Borelli. “People now e-mail me and say, ‘What would you do in this situation?’ and ‘Thank you for what you said.’ ”

To blog takes time, though. Blogs that aren’t refreshed at least a couple of times a week quickly lose their audience, experts on the phenomenon say. Many of the best-read blogs also are written in a personal style that many administrators may not be comfortable with.

Many administrators who blog have been instructed by their school boards or lawyers to add disclaimers saying that the views they express are their own, not their districts’. Many post rules for making comments, such as banning profanity.

Turning Ugly
Still, comments can turn ugly, particularly because they can be made essentially anonymously. Mr. Stock briefly pulled the plug on his blog when comments were made that included personal attacks following the departure of a popular high school football coach.
Clayton Wilcox, the superintendent of the 148,000-student Pinellas County, Fla., school district, retired a blog he’d run for more than a year last spring after a number of episodes in which comments became mean-spirited.

Overall, he said, blogging was a positive experience, providing him with useful input and letting him share his decisionmaking process with constituents. But, he added: “I was hearing from enough people that it was an embarrassment, and when I went back and looked at it, it was.”

In one such case, some racist remarks were made in comments on his blog after news that police had handcuffed a 5-year-old African-American girl at a Pinellas County elementary school—a video of which was made public. The comments were quickly removed.

The St. Petersburg Times, which conceived of the idea for the blog and hosted it on the online version of the newspaper, later relaunched it with a new format with multiple hosts, including Mr. Wilcox. But it has been largely inactive in recent months.

“I understand totally why administrators shy away from doing it,” said Will Richardson, a Flemington, N.J.-based education consultant and the author of a book on using Web tools, including blogs, in the classroom. “It’s risky, or at least it’s perceived as risky.”

But he and others argue that any potential downside needn’t scare administrators off. Not only can inappropriate comments be removed, but administrators also needn’t turn on the comment feature at all if they want to use their blogs just to let others in on their own thinking.

Ms. Moritz, the Gowanda High School principal, agrees that blogging, on balance, is good for administrators, and believes that the more open she is, the better. On whether to teach students Huckleberry Finn, she wrote, “They HATE it.” On recruiting teachers, she wrote, “Those who only want to play it safe … apply elsewhere.”

One of the thorniest issues dealt with on her blog involved a student at her school who had found answers to old state exam questions on the Web and used them to ace a school test that had the same items. She titled her posting on the case “Cheating or initiative?”

The posting drew 29 comments, mostly from students. Some said the student involved—who wasn’t named—should be punished. Some criticized how the exam was given. Ms. Moritz replied that the student hadn’t cheated, and pledged new procedures for test administration.

“It was somewhat difficult to manage, and sort of consumed us for a couple of days,” said the principal. “But I think if I hadn’t had the blog, the students would have gone the rest of the year getting angry about it. I’d rather deal with it than have it go on.”

Coverage of leadership is supported in part by a grant from The Wallace Foundation, at www.wallacefoundation.org.

How safe are our schools in Nevada?

Posted by Slim

TeacherTalk NV raised this issue on March 19, 2007. Do you feel safe? Are Nevada’s schools and districts doing enough to protect students and teachers? There are policies and then there are realities, which vary from site to site. Read below and let us know.

Teacher Magazine

Criminalizing Student Threats

By The Associated Press
Nashua, New Hampshire

Dorothy Morin, a teacher at Nashua High School North, says that when students threaten her or other teachers, they don't face much in the way of consequences.

"I think it's gotten worse over the years. It's escalated because nothing has been done. There's no deterrent," Morin said. "Our lives are in danger every day as teachers."

Testimony by Morin and others persuaded members of a state Senate committee to recommend a bill that would add criminal threatening to the list of offenses covered by the state's Safe School Zones law, which increases penalties for certain crimes committed on school grounds, including the sale or possession of illegal drugs.

Rep. Maureen Mooney, R-Merrimack, is the prime sponsor of the bill, which would let school districts take more action against students who threaten violence against other students or staff. She said she was motivated by recent incidents of school violence.

"I just think it's of the utmost importance to do everything within our power to ensure that safe school zones are exactly that: safe school zones," she said. The House has already passed the bill.

Claire Ebel, director of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union, objected to the inclusion of threatening, however. She said that while the other offenses covered by the Safe School Zones law involve actual violence or wrongdoing, a threat could be simply an act of stupidity.

"This seems like a very broad sweep for the state to take," she said.

The bill, which originally would have required expulsion for criminal threatening, was amended to give school districts more leeway. Sarah Browning, of the state Education Department, said schools already have broad authority to suspend or expel students who threaten others.

"I don't think passing this bill changes that, except that it's now more explicit," she said. "I think it makes clear what authority school districts have."

The bill also requires reporting, she said. Any witness to an offense covered by the Safe School Zones law must report it to a supervisor, who must notify police and note the incident in the student's permanent record.

According to a 2005 survey, nearly 9 percent of New Hampshire high school pupils reported being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property at least once during the previous year. Boys were three times as likely as girls to be threatened or injured, according to the 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

A survey by the National Center for Education Statistics found fewer threats against teachers in 2003 than a decade earlier: a drop from 12 percent to 7 percent. However, it also found that teachers in bigger cities were much more likely to face threats.

Creative or just twisted?

Posted by Slim

Students' Violent Writings Test Teachers

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Associated Press

BOULDER, Colo. — Writing teachers are being tested themselves these days in trying to discern whether a student is another Stephen King, a Seung-Hui Cho, Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold.

"It's a subjective phenomenon, being able to identify the difference between art and pathology," Sidney Goldfarb, a University of Colorado professor told the Camera.

Goldfarb, who has taught creative writing for four decades, once assigned 21 students to write short stories. Two wrote of suicide; the other 19 murder.

Last month an Illinois high school student was arrested after writing an essay describing his dreams of shooting people and having sex with dead bodies.

Columbine gunmen Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris portrayed hit men in a video they made for a high school government and economics class. The English Department at Virginia Tech referred Cho to the school's counseling service because of his violent writing.

Jeffrey DeShell, chairman of the CU English department, said he couldn't recall a student in the creative-writing program ever being referred to counseling for homicidal writing or odd classroom behavior. Some students have been referred to mental-health professionals when their writing reveals that they could be suicidal.

"We live in a violent society," said Matt Burriesci, associate director of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs of Fairfax, Va., which represents creative programs at 400 colleges and universities.

"There is a very thin line between monitoring someone with psychological problems and someone who is just writing about violence. Pick up a Stephen King novel or a John Grisham novel."

King, in an essay posted on EW.com, said after all the school violence his own college writing would have raised red flags, "For most creative people, the imagination serves as an excretory channel for violence. We visualize what we never actually do."

He added, "On the whole, I don't think you can pick these guys out based on their work, unless you look for violence unenlivened by any real talent."

DeShell said murder is a common way for novice writers to kill off their fictional characters. In one of Shakespeare's earlier plays, Titus Andronicus, nearly everyone dies. Students also may be trying to shock professors.

"A lot of students are trying their imaginations out," he said. "We should be a place that is somewhat safe for that."

Lorna Dee Cervantes, a faculty member who teaches poetry workshops, said teachers should not encourage students to write about violence.

When minority students abuse white teachers

Posted by Flatnose

The Review-Journal today ran an article that, unfortunately, strikes a chord with too many Southern Nevada public school teachers. "No one got upset when this woman was called a 'ho'" was the R-J's headline. Actually, the teacher -- after much abuse -- did get upset, but the administrators did not, and told her to "get over it": it was just the "students' culture," they said. In truth, it was also the culture of what candidly are, often, essentially depraved administrators.

The Black and White of 'Ho' Culture

By Kathleen Parker
The Washington Post Writers Group

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- In a new twist in American race relations, a federal court has ruled that a white teacher in a predominantly African-American school was subjected to a racially hostile workplace.
The case concerned Elizabeth Kandrac, who was routinely verbally abused by black students at Brentwood Middle School in North Charleston. Their slurs make shock jock Don Imus look like a church deacon.
Nevertheless, despite frequent complaints, school officials did nothing to intervene on Kandrac's behalf, arguing that the racially charged profanity was simply part of the students' culture. If Kandrac couldn't handle cursing, school officials told her, she was in the wrong school.

read the rest of the article

Survey shows teacher empowerment makes a difference

Posted by Slim

Surveys show schools where teachers were most content, student achievement was also high.

Published online: May 14, 2007

Teacher Magazine

Ask the Teacher

Policymakers survey educators' work needs.

By Steven Saint

In 2004, a group of teachers at Salem Middle School in Apex, North Carolina, approached then-principal Matthew Wight with a plan to overhaul the school’s grading system. They wanted a measurement that would reflect students’ progress on multiple specific skills.

Bill Ferriter, who teaches 6th graders at Salem, didn’t expect Wight to approve the plan. “We knew he’d be the one who would have to defend it to angry parents,” Ferriter says. Much to his surprise, Wight listened, decided the idea would benefit students, and put it into effect. “That was a defining moment in our school,” says Ferriter, who describes Salem as “a place where teachers are empowered to make critical decisions.”

Ferriter’s satisfaction is shared by other instructors at Salem, which is why the school was recognized this year as a model in North Carolina’s campaign to improve teachers’ working conditions.

Officials in North Carolina began surveying teachers in 2001 to determine the causes of high turnover; they asked about empowerment, leadership, time, facilities and resources, and professional development. The data revealed a trend that really got policymakers’ attention: In schools where teachers were most content, student achievement was also high.

North Carolina teachers have now been surveyed three times, says Eric Hirsch, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Teaching Quality, which the state hired to analyze the survey results. (Ferriter is also a member of the Teacher Leaders Network, a project of CTQ and a partner of Teacher Magazine.) Other states and districts have followed North Carolina’s lead: CTQ has conducted similar surveys in Arizona, Kansas, Ohio, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Clark County, Nevada.

Across these areas, one of the biggest differences between low- and high-performing schools is in the number of teachers who reported that “an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect” exists. “That’s the common denominator,” Hirsch says. School safety, planning time, and teachers’ ability to make decisions about instructional materials and techniques are other important factors.

The data also show that principals’ perceptions of conditions at their schools tend to be much rosier than teachers’. In North Carolina, for example, nearly all principals reported that teachers are central to educational decisions, while only half of teachers felt this to be true.

Meanwhile, teachers were more likely to stay at their schools if they believed principals were trying to improve conditions.

The survey results have just started to spur real change. North Carolina has formed a Teacher Working Conditions Advisory Board to lead the charge for transforming school environments. The state also recently ordered school improvement teams to develop plans to provide duty-free lunch periods and at least five hours of instructional planning per week for every teacher. Clark County, Nevada, has formed a Teaching and Learning Conditions Team of four highly trained teachers who work full time helping schools, and Virginia set aside funds to recruit teachers and improve conditions in hard-to-staff schools.

CTQ is documenting best practices in schools where principals and teachers are working together on reforms. At Salem, Ferriter knows firsthand how important working conditions are for teacher retention. He credits his freedom to make classroom-level decisions and the say he has on professional development and school policies with keeping him in the classroom after 14 years. “It makes the job far more professionally satisfying,” he says. “We probably have the best teaching conditions in the state, and we’re a magnet for accomplished teachers.”

Tips on cheating techniques

Posted by Slim

I had a clever teacher when I was in high school who wanted to learn about cheating techniques that he may not be aware. He asked our class to use any and all types of cheating methods for a quiz the next day on a meaningless, long series of numbers and letters for the fun of it.

The next day he gave us the quiz and was able to recognize how all but two of us cheated. I forget the technique the other student used, but the teacher was curious about mine as he could not tell how I pulled it off as he was watching me closely.

I explained I had cheated on the cheating test because I memorized the sequence and did not cheat. He had a good sense of humor and appreciated the irony. In the same spirit of catching these students is the article below.

Published online: May 14, 2007

Cheat Sheet

Teacher Magazine

By Amanda Jones

Forget writing on hands or whispering answers. Many students have traded the cheating techniques of yesteryear for more sophisticated methods.

Below are a few of the more innovative ways students have tried to gain an unfair advantage. You have to wonder what these students would accomplish if they were to apply such creativity and determination to a more constructive endeavor—like studying.


Water bottles: Students write answers on the inside of a bottle’s label, then reattach it, so the writing is visible through the water during the test.

Cell phones: In addition to text-messaging answers to one another, students take pictures of the test, then beam the images to friends. Others photograph their notes ahead of time.

M&M’s: After assigning each candy color a multiple-choice letter, students line up M&M’s on their desks in the order of the answers.

MP3 players: Before the test, students record answers and then listen to them through earphones during exams.

Invisible-ink pens: Kids write notes or formulas on a sheet of paper in invisible ink, then use the pen’s ultraviolet flashlight during the test to reveal what they’ve written.

Personal digital assistants: Students send information to one another through their PDAs and use the devices to store formulas and notes.

School leadership without becoming a principal

Posted by Slim

Many of us have filled the gap for administration, district or building, for the betterment of our schools. Here's an interesting article about teacher leadership.

Leadership by Teachers Gains Notice

By Lynn Olson

This article was originally published in Education Week.

Like a growing number of other teachers nationwide, Danna S. Clinton has taken on a variety of leadership roles in her school, from chairing the science department to helping with the school’s improvement plan. But she has one thing many of her colleagues do not have: a teacher-leadership endorsement from the state of Louisiana testifying to her skills.

“I’ve been teaching a long time,” said Ms. Clinton, a 27-year veteran and a physics teacher at the 2,400-student Lafayette High School in Lafayette, La. “So I thought this would be something new for me to do, stepping out of my comfort zone.”

Louisiana is one of a handful of states that have created or are considering adding endorsements to their state licensing systems that would formally recognize teachers who have taken on leadership roles outside their own classrooms. Illinois adopted a teacher-leadership endorsement last year, and Georgia has new rules that went into effect April 15. Other states, such as Delaware and Kentucky, are considering similar steps.

Advocates cite a number of reasons for such endorsements: They recognize teachers who have already assumed leadership functions in their schools. They make the principal’s job more doable by encouraging other teachers to take on such tasks. They create options for individuals who want to pursue leadership roles but are not interested in becoming principals. And they can serve as a pathway for future school leaders.

“These teacher-leadership roles are a natural pipeline into future principal and central-office leadership roles,” said Ann L. Duffy, the director of policy for the Atlanta-based Georgia’s Leadership Institute for School Improvement, a public-private partnership.

“There’s also a very clear need for building-level principals to recognize that leadership is more than just one person,” she said, “so there’s a need to codify, as well as create, incentives to help distribute leadership.”
Purely Optional

The actual requirements for the endorsements, which recognize a specific area of expertise on top of the basic license required to become a teacher, vary across states.

In Louisiana, teacher leaders must complete six hours of graduate coursework in educational leadership that can also be used toward a master’s degree. In Illinois, teachers can earn the endorsement by completing a master’s program in teacher leadership. But those in the state who are certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards or who have already demonstrated leadership experience in their schools can complete a smaller sequence of courses.

To receive state approval for offering such programs, Illinois institutions of higher education must submit program descriptions to the state department of education that specify how the courses will enhance teachers’ ability to improve instructional programs, provide effective professional development and leadership to their peers, and help foster a school environment conducive to learning.

In Georgia, the endorsement programs must address a variety of leadership functions, including how to develop and implement a shared school vision, provide effective instructional programs based on Georgia standards, and design comprehensive professional-growth plans for adults.

“The things that Georgia codified really center around creating or leading change,” Ms. Duffy said. “The idea is that as you take on those responsibilities outside the classroom, you are recognized and can apply them in a performance-based certification program.”

One thing is true across all the states so far: The endorsements are purely optional. Teachers don’t need to hold an endorsement to assume leadership roles in their schools. And the endorsements do not assure a teacher of any extra pay, unless a district chooses to provide it.

“Practically speaking, there’s no money attached to it,” said Ms. Duffy of Georgia. “It’s up to the district to determine whether or not the endorsements are required for certain roles and responsibilities.”

Erika L. Hunt, the project director of the Illinois-State Action for Education Leadership Project, part of a 22-state initiative sponsored by the New York City-based Wallace Foundation, said that “at some point, we would like to give some state incentive funding, but we weren’t able to at this point.”

“Right now, it’s not really anything more than paper,” said Nathan M. Roberts, the director of graduate studies in education at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “A principal, we hope, will look at it and say, ‘You’ve got this; you’re valuable.’ But there’s nothing built into the Lafayette system, or others, right now that says these people are one notch up and they’ve got priority.”

Even so, he said, his university probably has 10 times as many people interested in the teacher-leadership endorsement as in becoming school principals. “These people care about their school. They want the school to improve,” he said, “but they don’t want to become a principal. They want to teach, but they want to have some impact.”

While the endorsements aren’t mandatory, said Jo Anderson Jr., the executive director of the 130,000-member Illinois Education Association, he could foresee local bargaining agreements using the credential to mark teachers for salary increases, perhaps as part of career-ladder systems.

“But you can’t do that if the credential doesn’t exist,” he said.

“We think there will very definitely be a demand,” he added. “There are a lot of young, and more seasoned, teachers who would love to have more responsibility. … This whole reform strategy ultimately comes down to a single sentence: The more powerful the adult learning community, the more powerful the student learning. And that takes all different kinds of leadership.”
Rigidity a Worry

Anything that prompts the field to understand and encourage teachers to exercise more leadership is good, according to Joseph F. Murphy, a professor of education at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tenn.

But he cautioned that the endorsements could have a downside if they rigidify the leadership opportunities for teachers and limit those roles to a small number of individuals.

“How do you create opportunities for teachers to work together around the important stuff of schooling, where they can move in and out of leadership fluently depending on their expertise and wisdom?” he said. “That seems to me to be the most powerful element of teacher leadership. If it just sets up another set of roles and responsibilities, it will be helpful, but it won’t be as helpful as it could be.”

For Ms. Clinton, at least, the experience has been positive.

As part of a teacher-leadership institute created by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the physics teacher helped her school gather information from teachers and students about their perceptions of block scheduling. That research led the teacher-leadership team at her school, which completed the institute as a cohort, to design an upcoming workshop for their colleagues about how to use the 90-minute teaching blocks more effectively. The teacher leaders also meet regularly with one of Lafayette High’s assistant principals to help with the school’s improvement plan.

Ms. Clinton, who said she’s gained a new appreciation for the work of building leaders, is now completing her master’s degree in educational leadership and considering becoming a principal herself.

Once she completes the program in June, she said, she’s thinking of applying to become an assistant principal.

“I was a little nervous at first,” she said, “but I think I’m going to do it. I think that I would like to go ahead and be an administrator.”

Teacher Legislative Alert!

Posted by Slim

3 important bills will be heard early this afternoon in the Senate Human Resources & Education Committee. Granted, most teachers will be in classes when it starts but the meeting should still be in full swing once school gets out. You can view it live on the Internet at http://www.leg.state.nv.us/audio/AudioVideo.cfm and scrolling down to the appropriate session.

AB 70 will raise school board members' pay. AB 432 will provide teachers with more time to renew their license when it expires, a boon for those needing a hard to find class or are in rural Nevada. AB 459 is The Teachers' Bill of Rights. Feel free to post your insights and reactions to the committee meeting at TeacherTalk Nevada http://teachertalknv.org.

Sincerely,
Slim
Moderator, TeacherTalk Nevada

COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES AND EDUCATION

Day Wednesday Date May 9, 2007 Time 1:30 p.m. Room 2135

If you cannot attend the meeting, you can listen to it live over the Internet. The address for the legislative website is http://www.leg.state.nv.us. For audio broadcasts, click on the link “Listen to Live Meetings.”

Note: We are pleased to make reasonable accommodations for members of the public who are disabled and wish to attend the meeting. If special arrangements for the meeting are necessary, please notify the Senate Committee on Human Resources and Education at (775) 684-1480.
(R#) Indicates the reprint number of the bill/resolution being considered.
PLEASE PROVIDE 15 COPIES OF YOUR EXHIBITS AND NOTES.
FIRST REVISED AGENDA

A.B. 70 (R1) Revises provisions governing the compensation of the members of the boards of trustees of school districts. (BDR 34-878)

A.B. 432 (R1) Revises provisions governing the suspension and termination of certain educational personnel for failure to maintain a valid license. (BDR 34-1192)

A.B. 459 (R1) Makes various changes relating to teachers. (BDR 34-787)

Chip Mosher says "Bite me!"

Posted by Slim

Clark County School District teacher, Chip Mosher, writes about the abusive practices of some administrators in his latest column, Socrates in Sodom, for Las Vegas City Life. He certainly doesn't pull any punches.

Bite me

by Chip Mosher

SHE WAS ONE OF THE BEST TEACHERS I'D EVER SEEN ANYWHERE, intelligent and passionate about education. She had 19 years' experience in the Clark County School District, plus academic standards higher than the Himalayas. Her accelerated-placement honors science students, who loved her, often graduated from high school with as much knowledge as students in advanced college science programs. One day, while I was teaching in an adjacent hallway, she walked into my classroom, stopped and stood shaking uncontrollably, then shit her pants in front of my class.

"Mr. Mosher, I think Ms. Competence just shit her pants," one student discreetly whispered to me.

For the previous month she had been tortured by a supervisor, another woman, under the school principal's orders. To harass her, the supervisor would bolt into her room unannounced constantly throughout the school day, to check Ms. Competence's grade book, lesson plans, attendance sheets and so forth. All of which were always perfect.

Competence's crime? She had approached her principal, a man, to dispute her supervisor's annual evaluation of her. In the evaluation -- which is placed permanently in a teacher's employment records -- was this phrase: "Ms. Competence is too emotional for a teacher." (Footnote: Her principal and supervisor both had the intellect of a rutabaga.)

For questioning this one sentence in her evaluation and, subsequently, the administration's authority, Competence's honors classes were ripped from her schedule the following year. Instead, the principal forced her to teach bonehead science classes -- excessively large groups of 9th graders who had behavioral problems and loathed science. When the teachers' union failed to represent her competently against such brutal intimidation, a common story, Competence left the district. Why? Because her standards were higher than the Himalayas.

Thousands of teachers in Clark County have been treated as shabbily as, or worse than, Ms. Competence by the district and union. Combine this with the abusively low wages for teachers here, and you have the recipe for a mass exodus of educational talent from the valley.

To deal with this issue, that biennial carnival of crackheads in Carson City, our state Legislature, has been attempting to create, through Assembly Bill 459, a Teacher Bill of Rights. Apparently the U.S. Constitution hasn't been enough to protect teachers.

AB 459 is a legislative confession that the school district has been operating as a terrorist organization to destroy teachers. Unfortunately, this Teacher Bill of Rights is a clever ploy to divert the public's attention from the fact that the Legislature itself has been terrorizing teachers financially by refusing to raise the revenue needed to pay them a living wage in Las Vegas. Although AB 459 promises local teachers the right to legal representation in meetings with administrators, how many teachers on pitifully substandard salaries will be able to afford a lawyer? It's a bill without bite, created to give an impression that legislators have been doing something for teachers, when they haven't. Even with these bogus rights, abuse of teachers by vicious principals will continue. What teachers really need is a Bill of Bites -- to empower them to deal with the dipshits running our schools.

A Teacher Bill of Bites:

1) If an administrator looks at a teacher cross-eyed, or worse, the teacher can lean into the administrator's face and say, "Bite me, asshole!"

2) Any teacher unhappy with an evaluation can rewrite the evaluation to her liking, then call Murder, Inc. to hire a Luca Brasi-type for her evaluation meeting. With the Luca-type holding a gun to her supervisor's head, the teacher can say, "Either your signature or your brains will be on my new evaluation."

3) For protection, a teacher has the right to invite a suicide bomber to any administrative hearing.

4) When principals disrespect a teacher, the teacher can say, "Mess with me again and I'll kill ya -- by making you watch American Idol reruns of Sanjaya Malakar over Christmas holidays."

5) (And for my friend, the incontinent Ms. Competence): If confronted by an inept administrator, a teacher has the right to reach into her own underwear to pull out fresh feces and wing it at the administrator's forehead while saying, "Fuck you, shit for brains!"

Too much emotional and financial violence against teachers has crippled education here. Teachers don't need no stinking Bill of Rights. They need something with more bite. Can you spell baseball bats, kiddies?

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher.