LWVeducation
According to the Tallahassee News Service of Florida, Governor Scott will support $43 million dollars in 2017 teacher bonuses. Details of the plan are not yet available, but the Governor said that the plan will target new teachers who show great potential and veteran teachers who show the highest student academic growth among their peers. The current method of qualifying based on test scores will change.
Researchers at Stanford University have published a new study comparing public school vs. school choice privatization systems. Public schools that focus on equity win hands down.
The data suggest that the education sector is better served by a public investment approach that serves each and every child than by a market-based competition approach that creates winners…..and losers.
It is worth taking a minute to see how and why.
Rep. David Simmons, the chair of the Florida Senate Appropriations sub committee on Education wants a serious look at way to reduce over testing. What is over testing? Is it all the prep testing that goes on prior to the state tests? On the other hand, is it too many redundant state or national tests e.g. requiring students to sit the FSA and the SAT if they are going to college? Or, is it requiring students to take a state test like the FSA every year? There is another way to look at over testing. Perhaps it is a way to avoid looking for solutions.
Suppose you are a really good teacher and can prove it. You notice that a neighboring district has a pay for performance plan where high quality teachers with less experience earn more money than average teachers with more experience. Would you change districts? In today‘s Gainesville Sun, a local economist, Dave Denslow, summarized a study by Barbara Biasi, a Stanford graduate student, who compared school districts in Wisconsin that used a ‘pay for performance plan‘ with districts that did not. The result?
We can continue to feed information to the public about the destructive impact of ill thought out school choice policies. There is a danger, however, that we are simply preaching to the choir. Those who should be aware may not be tuned in.
Our strategies to increase awareness must be more diverse. What would prompt your neighbor, colleague, fellow parent to tune in?
It is logical that busy people preoccupied with families and jobs will respond to calls for action if they recognize the urgency and the possibility for a positive impact.
I am working on a set of ‘headlines’ and slogans that communicate the immediacy of the need to preserve our public schools. What do we value about our public schools? What are the threats to public education? Which solutions do we propose?
Can we come up with short, single sentences that encapsulate a need or something you value. Then we can refer people to more in depth analyses and ways to respond.
Let’s see:
OR
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You get the idea. Send me your captions and communication strategies. We will hone them and use them to target issues. We will discuss these at the League’s Orlando leadership conference in January.
There are solutions to complex problems. Take for example the issue of not enough time. We all experience this concern but for children, it can impact their entire lives. Over and over again we hear that children need more time in school. Parents too have concerns about child care while they are working.
School time and work time do not match. Everyone knows something should be done, but time costs money. Here’s an example from the Christian Science Monitor that describes how a school was able to solve the time problem. They managed it differently. Read the story here. This is a fundamental change but a feasible one. IT COULD SOLVE MANY FRUSTRATIONS IN OUR DAILY LIVES and help children learn.
Could this be the end of the test-and-punish era? FairTest has come up with a ‘system of systems‘ designed to incorporate inquiry and project based learning as well as more traditional assessments. It may not be able to turn a sows’ ear into a silk purse, but this is the direction states need to go.
The Florida State Board of Education met in Tampa on Friday. They have higher targets for the percentage of students meeting FSA academic standards on their minds. Much higher.
High goals are good. Even better would be support to meet those goals. It is all about school leadership claim some Board members.
There is always an undercurrent of skepticism about ‘looming crises’. It is likely, however, that the predicted teacher shortages may be real. According to the Learning Policy Institute, the causes include: declining enrollment in teacher preparation programs, districts’ return to smaller class sizes after the recession, increasing student enrollments, and high teacher attrition. What would help?
The Tampa Bay Times reported that the State Board of Education (SBE) Vice Chair, John Padget has called for eliminating the teacher bonus based on SAT scores. The money for the program has been allocated in the budget, but the law has to be renewed this coming session. Erik Fresen, who championed the measure is no longer in the legislature. Pam Stewart, Florida’s Commissioner of Education, is looking at the impact of the program on teacher retention and will report back to the SBE.