This blog has been created to add a supplemental source of information for Seattle Education Association members and any interested community members and allies.
Earlier this week, we noted that district negotiators said they would seriously consider the latest SEA proposal, which attempted to address our mutual interests in quality teaching while not misusing student test data to fire teachers.
District negotiators returned Thursday and did indeed engage in a serious conversation with SEA to explore our proposal. The session concluded without any tentative agreements being reached over adopting the jointly developed Professional Growth & Evaluation process, but the district did choose to add an extra day of negotiations on Monday. The bargaining teams had not planned to resume contract talks until Tuesday.
SEA supports moving forward with the historic progress already achieved through the jointly negotiated Professional Growth and Evaluation plan. SEA’s proposal on Tuesday suggested carving out middle ground by recognizing the district’s interest in using test data to help support teachers who may benefit from additional help, while not misusing students’ scores as a part of the final evaluation or to fire teachers.
Negotiations continue and no contract agreement is in place. SEA will be contacting our building site reps to attend an organizing meeting scheduled for 4:30 to 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Thank you to all the SEA members who came this afternoon to the rally, over 200 members and supporters chanting “Kids first, not the test, kids deserve the very best” was a great thing to see and hear. Tomorrow, Thursday, August 19, 2010 will be an important day at the bargaining table for the SEA Bargaining team, but I wanted to share the following which was my speech that I delivered this evening to the Seattle School Board, Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson and the packed room of community members.
Please enter into the record for the August 18, 2010 SPS School Board Meeting.
I’m Olga Addae, President of Seattle Education Association.
In these tough economic times the district once again prioritizes spending their limited resources for “things” and not services for our students.
Will the 2.5 million dollars for new technology enhance student learning? I doubt it.
Will the new technology close the Achievement Gap? Definitely not!
What other technological machinery does SPS propose to waste its limited resources on? Nearly 4 million dollars to mechanize and automate the teacher evaluation system.
Will tying test scores to teacher evaluation enhance student learning? NO!
Will tying test scores to evaluations close the Achievement Gap? Definitely NOT.
The district can not show any evidence that tying student test scores to evaluations will enhance student learning.
So what purpose can it SERVE?
·It serves to mechanize/automate firing teachers
·It serves to dismantle collaboration amongst educators
·It serves to increase “teaching to the test”
·It serves to narrow the curriculum choices for students
·It serves to undermine our Profession of Teaching
I stand on the integrity and experience of our profession. Educators know:
·Children are more than test scores
·Teaching is more than “teaching to a test”
As professionals we say “No” to the improper use of tests and the destruction the district plans to serve to our students and teachers.
We will not sell out our profession or our students for failed and an unproven education policy driven by the Gates and Broad Foundations hidden agenda.
We will not sell out our profession or our students because our experience tells us that it is only through enhancing our profession through collaboration; collaboration that leads to “ongoing inquiry” , that we will build a quality education system for our students.
We the educators seek authentic accountability? Yes! Hold us accountable to our teaching practice!
The SEA and SPS joint Professional Growth and Evaluation Task Force has developed a robust evaluation system that not only holds us accountable to our teaching practice but builds collaboration and professional learning communities that will enhance student learning.
This shift in education culture is the only proven way to close the Achievement Gap.
It uses student outcome data, explicitly as stated in law: To reflect and improve our teaching practice.
We are about to embark on a “historical cultural shift” not a packaged program.
Creativity, professional autonomy, collaboration, and authentic evaluation, are the foundations to a quality public education that all students deserve.
Vice President Sundquist, members of the board, superintendent Goodloe-Johnson, my name is Jonathan Knapp and I am the proud Vice President of the Seattle Education Association, the voice of Seattle’s educators.
Washington State has a long history of progressive labor organizations. Our roots go back to the International Workers of the World organizing the timber workers in camps throughout the rural parts of the state. SEA does credit to that progressive history by proposing real reform that addresses the one of the true failings of public education: the achievement gap.
Seattle educators make no apology for advocating for what we know to be right for our workplace because we know that the educators working conditions are the child’s learning conditions.What makes educators more effective and improves a child’s academic achievement are the measures and support by the district that inspire confidence. The kind of disruptive and divisive proposals that the district has put on the bargaining table do not inspire confidence among the very people that your bargaining team has characterized as the most important element in a child’s education: the teachers. My challenge to you is to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.
If you think that teachers really are the most important element in a child’s education, then you need to listen to what we are asking for to help close the achievement gap. Teachers are imploring you to implement a new evaluation system that we jointly developed with district managers through an arduous, collaborative, two-year process. Teachers want a clear and effective tool to look critically at their own practice in the classroom and benefit from the insights of their evaluators to make the substantive changes in the parts of their teaching practice that need improvement. The beautiful thing about the joint task-force’s recommendations is that it moves principals away from an antagonistic relationship with teachers and moves them into the role of collaborative supporter of teacher’s continuous professional development. This kind of teamworkis in line with Seattle’s culture.
Walk the walk of supporting the most important element in a child’s education. Seattle’s educators want to implement historic reform to improve teachers’ practice to improve student achievement. What is more accountable than the accountability of that kind of commitment and engagement by educators? Shake off your punitive notions of motivation and coercive methods of improvement. Teachers know that isn’t how we build trusting relationships with our students in our classrooms. Leave behind these 19th century notions of factory training. Join us in the 21st century where we can cultivate a new climate of confidence and trust together and where we can grow an educational ecosystemtogether, an ecosystem that, like all ecosystems, evolves interdependencies and interrelationships that grow into a healthy and vibrant environment where all the members thrive and not just survive.
SEA Rally to support our bargaining team 5:30 p.m., August 18 JSCEE prior to the School Board Meeting
Does the Seattle School District truly want to move forward with historic change, or is its strategy to block progress with an unyielding insistence on unproven, unacceptable testing schemes?
The SEA negotiating team extended a branch today that should make it clear whether the district’s true goal is to use test scores to improve student achievement and quality teaching, or whether it is merely a ruse for some other agenda.
Early in the day, the district’s negotiating team continued stonewalling on the issue of using test scores for teacher evaluations. Finally, when challenged by SEA to identify what parts of their SERVE proposal they were actually willing to negotiate over, their blocking strategy became clear.
The district was not willing to negotiate any proposal that didn’t base teacher evaluations on student test scores. It was their way or no way.
SEA supports moving forward with the historic progress already achieved through the jointly negotiated Professional Growth and Evaluation plan. So SEA’s bargaining team huddled privately to develop a creative solution that would meet the core values of SEA members and the interests of the district.
The result: A proposal from SEA that seeks to carve out middle ground by recognizing the district’s interest in using test data to help recognize teachers who may benefit from additional help, while not misusing test data to evaluate and fire teachers.
District negotiators said they would seriously consider the SEA proposal. We will know how seriously when we meet on Thursday morning for our next bargaining session.
Remember . . .
the Seattle Education Association
General Membership Meeting Thursday, September 2, 2010, 4:30 p.m. SPU's Royal Brougham Pavillion 3414 3rd Ave W (at W Nickerson) Seattle
Here is another sample of what one teacher sent out to the community:
Hello,
I am both a teacher and parent of Seattle Public Schools.
You might be wondering if a strike is looming in Seattle schools... Well, my answer is NO! The only person talking about a strike is Dr. Goodloe-Johnson. Teachers are ready to go back into the classrooms, many already have.
SEA and SPS are much closer to hammering out a contract than Dr. G-J wants us to believe. The only sticking point is the evaluation system. And this is the REAL RUB: half of what Dr. G-J is calling "SERVE" was developed jointly with SEA!!
Let me back up. Over the past two years, a joint committee of SEA and SPS have worked together to develop a new evaluation system. They finished it, agreed to it, and both parties SIGNED OFF on it in April. As far as SEA understood, this part of the contract had been settled.
Then, out of the blue, Dr. G-J adds on the part about teachers' evaluations being linked to student test scores conveniently the week after the school year ended. Not getting anywhere at the bargaining table, she went public with her idea. However, Dr. G-J bundled what the joint SEA SPS committee created with her idea of tying test scores to evaluations and called it SERVE. When Dr. G-J went public at the start of August to gain public favor for her test score idea she failed to give credit for what SEA did. Instead, she's making it sound like SEA doesn't want to change the evaluation system at all. She deceived me, and I think many others have been fooled, too.
SEA wants everyone to understand that teachers support a new evaluation system, and the new eval system called "PG and E- professional growth and evaluation" is going to bring radical change to the district. No longer will a teacher's evaluation be pass/fail, it's going to be unsatisfactory, basic, proficient, and innovative.... and it will not be acceptable to be either unsat or basic. Not to mention the detail and clarity of the PG and E system's rubric. I know from my experience, I want specific feedback that will help me grow as a professional. The PG and E system is a tool that will enable admin to have these constructive conversations with teachers.
Another thing SEA wants everyone to consider, where is the research that says student test scores correlates to teacher quality? We all know there are hundreds of variables teachers do not control that strongly effect students' test scores... so why would we want to stake who is fired based on how well Johnny slept the night before he took his MAP test?
If you have questions or just want to shoot the breeze about what I wrote, feel free to email or call me. And in the meanwhile, there is a school board meeting next week, Wednesday, August 18th. I plan on going to demonstrate my distaste for Dr. G-J's approach to negotiations. Specifically, I want Dr. G-J to honor what the joint SPS and SEA committee created. I hope you will spread the message, too. Thanks,
There is a new system that is steamrolling into our school district,
into our classrooms, and into the relationships that I have with each
of my students. This system, driven by standardized tests, will
change the classroom environment dramatically. I am asking for you to
make your voices heard on this issue.
As you may already know, Seattle Public Schools is prioritizing its
focus and funding on ways to make teachers “more accountable” by
linking student test scores to teacher evaluation and compensation.
But the elephant in the room is: Are these high quality tests? Do we
want teachers to give them highest priority? Tests such as the
Measurement of Academic Progress (MAP) test finite skills, which can
be useful for a teacher in designing instruction, but let’s not be
misled: it does not test how an individual child is developing skills
of critical thinking, creativity and problem solving, or independent
and teamwork skills—cornerstone qualities of the most successful
members of our society.
As a successful lifelong learner myself, I naturally need feedback in
many forms to evaluate my teaching so I can continuously improve.
However, this move to emphasize test results to evaluate and
compensate teachers is setting students up to be shortchanged.
Teachers will be forced to teach a narrower set of skills, focusing on
test-measured forms of “success”. Class time for music, arts, social
studies, science, research, and physical education will continue to
dwindle as long as the focus on testing is largely in reading and
math. I have already seen this happen throughout the district at the
elementary level, especially in schools with higher poverty rates
where students tend to test poorly and the pressure to raise test
scores is intense.
Even testing logistics have a negative impact on learning. In
buildings throughout the
district, the entire school is denied access to precious library
resources for 9 weeks out of
the 36 weeks of the year to allow for MAP testing three times a year:
that’s 25% of the
year! On top of that, often teachers and principals decide that kids
need more practice with standardized test taking on the computers in
order to succeed on these high-stakes tests. Children will see
libraries as testing centers rather than as places to expand their
learning through research and be inspired by great books.
What about teacher evaluation?
All students deserve talented, effective, inspiring teachers. We need
an evaluation system that encourages teachers to engage children in
critical thinking and in creative problem solving, as opposed to a
system focused on multiple choice test taking. A new evaluation
system was developed collaboratively over the last few years by the
Seattle Education Association and Seattle Public Schools and piloted
in several Seattle schools, and was shown to be a useful and effective
evaluation system to judge the effectiveness of teachers. It also gave
principals the power to put those teachers who demonstrated
ineffective teaching skills on probation. This system is an exciting
new development for our teachers and administrators, something that
many saw as a very promising step forward to building successful
schools.
But then Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson acted unilaterally in adding
the test based evaluation system to this new collaboratively-developed
system
After 15 meetings of the contract negotiation teams, Seattle Public
Schools introduced a new addition to the collaboratively developed
evaluation system, reducing the new system to 50% of a teacher’s
evaluation, and announcing 35-45% of the teacher’s evaluation would be
tied to student performance on standardized tests, most significantly
the new MAP test. This 11th hour addition to the contract negotiations
is called SERVE. These are just a few of my concerns:
* The MAP test was brought to the district in a no-bid contract.
Not having an alternate bid for many contracts is an embarrassing
critique outlined in the federal audit of SPS, recently published.
* Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson sits on the board of the
company that makes the MAP test, and did not disclose that before the
contract was approved.
* Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), the company that makes
the MAP test, states the test was never designed as a tool to evaluate
teachers.
* $4 million price tag to roll out this system includes money for
the test and for more administrators to oversee the program--- money
that won’t go to our children’s classrooms.
* Honest and thoughtful evaluations can’t be that easy! The SERVE
plan hands teacher evaluation over to a computer.
Do we want computerized tests at the core of what our teachers teach
and what our children learn?
What Can You Do?
Come to the Board Meeting at John Stanford Center for Educational
Excellence (JSCEE) on August 18.
Talk and write to everyone you know about your feelings. Write to The
Seattle Times and neighborhood papers. Email or call Superintendent
Goodloe-Johnson at superintendent@seattleschools.org or 206-252-0167
Contact the School Board members and tell them your concerns with the
SERVE proposal and the direction it would take our schools. Seattle
School Board email addresses:
