The 53: More from Paul Lemle.... and from me!

Heighdy-ho! ?Sunday night Paul Lemle wrote some very thoughtful, detailed answers to the questions I posed of him Friday. ?I thought I would publish his responses as its own post, as well as leave his original remarks as a comment on my Friday post. ?I urge everyone to read these responses, as I find them fascinating. ?Not saying I agree, as you can see below, but great that the time has been taken to provide a response. ?Also included, in blue highlight, are my thoughts on his responses:

MM,
Here you go:
Does the current mechanism of how HCPSS teachers are appraised run contrary to the aims of the grant? How so?

Yes, but change is coming. For many years, HCPSS teachers have been evaluated using Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching (http://www.danielsongroup.org/article.aspx?page=frameworkforteaching).The grant requires "student growth" to be added as a significant component. "Student growth" is code for including the aggregated results of low quality, state mandated standardized tests as a dramatically over-emphasized part of the evaluation.

OK, so I am familiar with multivariable, multilevel personnel appraisals. ?Been doing them for about 10 years. ?Danielson's framework is interesting. ?But only one of the 22 criteria across the four domains has to do with standardized testing. ?And no where within the framework do I see the words "student growth". ?Are you implying that the use of the term "student growth" is an effort by the HCPSS to replace the framework?

Is the current mechanism of how HCPSS appraises its teachers a possible hurdle in Howard County being selected for this grant? Why or why not?

I don't think so, because in 2010 the state of Maryland passed the Education Reform Act and Nancy Grasmick's MSDE pushed 22 of MD's 24 counties (including Howard; Montgomery and Frederick took the smarter path) to apply for a federal Race To The Top grant. In these two events, the landscape of public education shifted for the worse. It became state law to do as I've described above (use bad standardized tests as a major part of teacher and principal evaluations).

So this response would indicate that your response to what I pose above is "yes"? ?And how has the landscape shifted for the worse?

As I do not have a copy of the grant application, and the CFR passage Mr. Meshkin provided did not specifically state that the US DOE wants to see HCPSS's teacher appraisal criteria, I ask you: does the DOE want to even see these criteria?

Yes. You don't need the HCPSS grant to see it. USDE's application and notice inviting applications (http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-district/index.html)?make it very clear. Applicants must put in a RTTT-compliant evaluation system for 2014-15, and presumably keep it during the period of the grant.

And why wouldn't the current system (Danielson's framework) be compliant? ?Because under the framework, by my read this evening, different levels of proficiency in the component having to do with standardized testing have to be defined.

Why couldn't HCEA simply have signed off on the submission, allowing for the teacher appraisal issues to be negotiated in a thoughtful, more methodical process?

Here, a little history is in order. Since the passage of the aforementioned law, we've seen the school system and the state take a bizarre, uncompromising, and punitive approach to teacher evaluations. Even though the MD General Assembly's committee that has oversight on education law rejected MSDE's regulations that followed the new law, MSDE has made no meaningful changes to them. Without getting too deep into the weeds, we keep getting the answer, "you have to do this, because it is in the RTTT application, which your school system signed onto over your objection." When we talked with our attorney, she advised us that signing on to the RTTT-D grant would put us in a situation where we could not maintain the integrity of our contract. In other words, we would be willfully neglecting our legally required duty: enforce the agreement we've negotiated for the people we represent.

What school system has taken such an approach to the teacher evaluations? ?HCPSS? ?Or others? ?So now is there an insinuation that school systems use RttT grants as a means of punishing teachers?

Last does HCEA intend to continue to hold its desire to have the methods of teacher appraisals changed, prior to signing off on any future grant applications?

It is very doubtful, because as I alluded to above, this grant application is unique. Neither Dr. Foose, nor I, nor my predecessor could come up with another instance where HCEA's approval was required for HCPSS to do something. It has clearly been the US Dept of Ed's experience that without union support, these grants don't work, and they therefore don't allow school systems to impose the grants on their teachers unilaterally.

Well, and there is the issue of this $30M grant now being dead as a doornail....

. . . I submit to you that through your union's single-minded focus on one issue, and by allowing this issue to kill a grant opportunity that could mean $30 million to aid a substantial portion of our local schools, that you have turned yourself and your union into as tone-deaf entities as those you rail against in your critiques of standardized testing in the first place.

It's possible. I understand that it may appear that way. But we've been far from single-minded, or tone deaf. If you look at the past 18 months, we spiked the plan to put appointed seats on the Howard BOE (yes, I wrote that dissent) ?Good idea!. We made the middle school program of studies actually take middle school kids into account I wish someone would hold a whole lot of people at OMMS accountable, because that school was tragic while my daughter was there... oh, wait, did I say that? ?. It may not always be obvious, but it is HCEA's due diligence, in the form of collective bargaining analysis and public information act requests that keeps the school system honest with its $700M yearly budget. Do you know how much HCPSS underspent its utility budget by for each of the past 5 years, or the amounts of the subsequent year budget requests? Do you think any member of the county council knows? I do. While you are thinking about that one, let's try another. How about health care. HCPSS budgets for, and pays, the real costs of its employees' health care, in the neighborhood of $65M yearly. HCPSS employees, however, have been healthier than expected every year for a long time. How much (hint: tens of millions) has this surplus been? Why has no part of it ever been returned to employees (who own 10-13% of it in direct cash payments) or taxpayers?

Don't those surplus funds get rolled over to the next year, within the next year's budget? ?I can kind of get why we don't get refund checks, actually. ?We shouldn't.

I'm sure I deserve plenty of criticism. It comes with the territory, and I can take it. I just want to push back a little against the idea that we are "railing" against any entity or simply "critiquing" standardized tests. My problem comes not from the test itself, though they really are bad tests. For fun, we should sit down with a Government HSA and laugh at what MSDE has decided is important for young people to know--and how they ask to see if students know it. My problem comes from the overemphasis on these tests, and the illogical fallacy that we could make clean, easy judgments about teacher quality from them. Ask yourself what you would teach if half your evaluation score was going to be based on a multiple choice test. Would you be feeling creative about the electoral college or the apportionment process? Spend a couple extra class days on the tension between minority rights and majority rule if students were into it? I had a great case study from Chicago's public housing, where tenants had asked police to do gun sweeps enforcing the city's now unconstitutional handgun ban (and the NRA had successfully sued to stop them), but I rarely had the time to use it even though students loved it. Spend time teaching how courts had reached the conclusion that Gitmo detainees were not "persons?" Fascinating, and leads directly to the most interesting and compelling contradictions in our system of government, but VERY unlikely to be taught. You need to make sure students can tell you how many people are in Congress.

That all sounds great, but a lot of us feel less than wonderful about our jobs-- at least not 100% that our employer does everything in accordance with our thoughts, hopes and wishes. ?And yet, my employer expects me to do my job, and my supervisor annually sets criteria that present a high bar for me to jump over. ?And some of those duties are things I don't like, in fact despise.

While words can't adequately describe the gratitude I have had for the teachers in the HCPSS who have educated both of my children, and myself, I wonder: can't our teachers do the same thing?

That's all for now. Have a good Monday,
PL

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Source: http://53beersontap.typepad.com/53beers/2012/11/more-from-paul-lemle-and-from-me.html

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