Talking points created by teachers for parents

WHY SEATTLE TEACHERS AND PARENTS ARE STANDING UP

Under the Superintendent's plan called SERVE:

* More time testing = less time learning. Precious class time would be spent “teaching to the test,” eliminating art, music, PE, project-based learning, and other instruction needed to ensure success in college and in life.
 
* Students would be dismissed from school every other Friday afternoon while teachers attend meetings. This is a loss of more than 2 weeks of class time.
 
* Libraries & computer labs would be closed to classes during the 9 weeks required to test students during the year. Yet, this test does not replace, or even prepare students for, the state-required proficiency exams required for graduation.
 
* Relationships between students and teachers would be undermined by high-stakes testing - increased stress threatens the personalization that makes for good teaching.
 
* Taxpayers would be asked to spend millions more on the MAP test which, according to its creators, was never meant to be used as a summative student evaluation (like the SAT), nor as a teacher evaluation tool.
 
Concerned parents and teachers believe:
 
Students are more than test scores. They are human beings, not “products” to be measured and calibrated to “the norm.”
 
21st century education requires developing critical thinking skills, effective communication skills, practice in collaboration and intrapersonal interaction in addition to “the three R’s”.
 
Teachers cannot treat students as individuals when the district treats them as "products" that determine employment and compensation.
 
Cooperation and collaboration among teachers disintegrates as colleagues become "competitors" fighting for the “best students” and “merit” pay determined by a test score.
 
Teachers want to be accountable for factors they control: planning & preparation, classroom environment, instructional practice and professional responsibility.
 
For more information see:
Department of Education Error Rates in Measuring Teacher and School Performance Based on Student Test Score Gains http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104004/pdf/20104004.pdf
Diane Ravitch Obama's Race to the Top Will Not Improve Education
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/obamas-race-to-the-top-wi_b_666598.html
Dora Taylor The MAP test has a few teensy problems http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut4bK2Z0cvs
Meg Diaz takes the School Board to task http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19vOVdpOh6M
Carl Bialik Putting Teachers to the Test http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/putting-teachers-to-the-test-982/

Coalition of Community Groups have Similar Concerns as many Educators

The following is an excerpt from The Answer Sheet on washingtonpost.com entitled: “New analysis blasts Obama’s school turnaround policy -- and tells how to fix it”.

The report includes a proposal for a new approach to school intervention called “Sustainable School Transformation,” which has these central elements:

1) A strong focus on school culture, curriculum and staffing.

This includes:
--Strong leadership
--Staffing structures that facilitate collaboration
--Professional development designed to meet individual needs of the staff
--A research-based, thoughtfully crafted teacher evaluation program, developed in conjunction with parents, students, teachers and administrators
--A well-rounded, culturally relevant and enriched college and career preparatory curriculum
--Intensive literacy support and “reading recovery” programs to ensure a focus on literacy

2) Wrap-around supports for students

This includes:
--Access to guidance counselors at the high school level
--A positive behavioral approach to school discipline
--Access to primary health care services to address basic wellness issues, including emotional/mental health issues

3) Collaboration to ensure local ownership and accountability
This includes:
--A comprehensive assessment of the school’s individual strengths, challenges and impediments to student success that takes a full school year.
--Students, parents and community members must be full partners in all stages,

“Yes, dramatic action is needed. But we have to get it right." the report says.

The “Framework for Providing All Students an Opportunity to Learn” is a collaboration of these groups: Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Schott Foundation for Public Education, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Coalition for Educating Black Children, National Urban League, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

President Olga Addae speaking to the NEA Delegates -July 6, 2010

From the National Education Association Representative Assembly

New Business Item 90 (Adopted)

The NEA will create an action plan using existing committee structure that will designate long and short term goals for the purpose of developing policy recommendations to support broad-based organizing efforts of local & state affiliates with other labor, non-profit & faith-based organizations.

Seattle Education Association President, Olga Addae speaking on July 6, 2010, in support of NBI 90

Olga Addae speaking on behalf of the delegation, I move New Business Item 90.

Mr. President, Van Roekel, in your key note speech you spoke of the deep and long economic crisis and its devastating impact on our students, our members, and our schools.

I agree with you; the future of America is uncertain and intolerable consequences await not only our students and our members; but every American who is among the working middle class, the unemployed, and those living in poverty.

It is time for all of us unite; whether we live in a Right-to-Work state or a Fair-Share state; Whether we are NEA or AFT, whether we are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents; Whether we are upper middle class or lower middle class. We need to reach out through broad-based organizing efforts to build relations with other non-profits, faith based groups and most importantly other unions.

It is time to take back America from the strangle hold of the financial elite and for-profit corporations.

The real education reform we seek requires real resources that are sustainable.

We must learn from history; the last time so few held so much of the wealth in America was right before the Depression… from that crisis the opportunity to build a strong middle class, with strong unions, strong non-profits (such as the PTA) and strong faith based organizations. The zenith for all these civil sector organizations was in the mid 1950’s.

It only took 60 years for the financial elite to dismantle the civil sector that so many unsung heroes fought and died for. Let us not wait for another Depression.

We must reach out to our brethren and build better relations and “Act” for the common good. Broad-based organizing is not about forming another union, not about a temporary coalition. It is about a process of continuous efforts to build relations with other unions, non-profits and faith based groups to “Act” for the common good, which is determined locally. Please support NBI 90