Thinking and Linking by Joanne Jacobs
Few high schools track graduates to see if they’re succeeding in college or careers. Some states are linking high school and college data to evaluate success rates.
Also on Community College Spotlight: Community college construction has stopped in Los Angeles. The district has billions in bond money, but can’t afford to pay for building maintenance or for instructors to use the new space.
After fighting charter schools in Los Angeles as head of the teachers’ union, A.J. Duffy plans to start charter schools that will make it harder for teachers to earn tenure, reports the Los Angeles Times.
And if a tenured teacher becomes ineffective, he wants to streamline dismissals. The process now in place can stretch out for several years, even with substantial evidence of gross misconduct. Some union leaders, notably Duffy, have defended this “due process” as a necessary protection against administrative abuses.
“I would make it 10 days if I could,” Duffy now says of the length of the dismissal process.
Duffy, 67, will be executive director of Apple Academy Charter Public Schools, which hopes to open one or more schools in south Los Angeles by the fall of 2012.
Caprice Young, who ran the California Charter Schools Association, will serve on Duffy’s board. Young was president of the Los Angeles Unified school board till United Teachers of Los Angeles mounted a successful campaign to oust her in 2003.
A.J. Duffy and Caprice Young are collaborating on charter schools? Repent of your sins.
While opposing charter schools, Duffy tried to unionize them.
. . . he argued for charter school-like freedoms at traditional schools, running up against the L.A. Unified bureaucracy and, frequently, his own union’s reluctance to risk weakening contract protections.
Duffy’s Apple schools will be unionized, though UTLA will have to agree to his new systems for granting tenure and firing teachers.
Under his tenure model, teachers would undergo a three-year probationary period, with a review by the principal and an experienced mentor or “master teacher” after two years that would enable them to continue on to the third year or be let go.
After the third year, they would earn tenure for two years, after which they would have to be recertified. After each tenure period, they would earn an additional year of tenure before undergoing the next recertification.
Teacher dismissal would be decided by binding arbitration within a 10 to 20-day period after the principal and master teacher agree the teacher should be fired. Under the current system, firing a teacher can take years.
In a large, bureaucracy such as Los Angeles Unified, “it continues to be necessary for teachers to be overly protected, but I have always said that UTLA would be willing to give up certain traditional protections if they got in return academic autonomy,” Duffy told AP.
He hopes to hire union teachers from the Crescendo network, which lost its charter this spring after a cheating scandal.
Teachers and administrators will get first crack at running new schools in Los Angeles, the board of education has decided, changing policy for the Public Choice Initiative. Only if inside groups’ plans are rejected will charter operators and others be able to apply.
The district will accept proposals for 15 new campuses by Nov. 18.
Since the policy began, 11 charter schools won bids to run new district campuses and one existing campus is being operated by a charter organization. About 40 campuses are operated by inside district groups, mainly led by teachers.
The board hopes to pressure the teachers’ union to be more flexible on performance evaluations, job requirements and other conditions at the new schools.
Los Angeles charter schools outperformed district schools at every grade level on the state’s 2011 Academic Performance Index, according to the California Charter Schools Association. Latinos, blacks, low-income students and English Learners earned higher scores at charter schools. “All but one of the new charter schools authorized by the Los Angeles School Board during the first phase of its Public School Choice initiative outperformed similar new schools run by LAUSD”
Los Angeles charter school students are 80 percent less likely to switch schools than similar students at traditional public schools, concludes a study by Policy Analysis for California Education researchers at Berkeley. However, LA charter teachers are more likely to leave their school at year’s end, according to a companion study.
“While charter teachers are churning in and out of where they work, charter students and parents seem more loyal to their school choice,” said Luke Dauter, a Berkeley doctoral student in sociology and lead author of the study on student mobility, in a statement.
While teachers in charter secondary schools were considerably more likely to leave than comparable teachers at traditional schools, elementary charter teachers under 30 were less likely to leave.
Both studies looked at the time frame between 2002 and 2009, when the number of charter schools in Los Angeles tripled from 53 to 157 campuses, notes Ed Week.
At all schools, mobility is lower for Latino teachers and students at all schools and higher for African-American students, the study found. Blacks were likely to leave traditional schools for charters.
Homework will count for only 10 percent of a student’s grade in Los Angeles public schools, a new policy dictates. The goal is to equalize grading for students with “varying degrees of access to academic support at home.” Some teachers fear students won’t bother to complete assigned work.
Because many teachers grade on effort, rather than performance, the policy will lower grades, predicts Darren, who teaches math in Sacramento.
In my classes, homework counts for 20% of a student’s grade–still too much for LA Unified, but much less than so many others teachers. This means that 80% of a student’s grade comes from tests and quizzes, which are measures of performance.
In my classes, students must demonstrate some level of mastery of the material in order to pass the course; I don’t give courtesy D’s for those who learn nothing but “try” all the homework.
I don’t think teachers should assign homework that requires “academic support” at home.
Locke High School’s last class of students from the pre-charter era will be graduated today in Los Angeles. The 484 graduates represent an 85 percent increase from 2008, the last year Locke was under district control, according to Green Dot. The number of graduates completing the A-G college-prep requirements has tripled.
When Green Dot took over the school, it placed 10th graders in Launch to College Academies (LCA). Of 340 LCA students, 306 will walk at the graduation ceremony. Also graduating are 41 students at Animo Locke 4, a school for over-age and credit-deficient students and those returning from juvenile detention.
I’ve been reading Alexander Russo’s Stray Dogs, Saints and Saviors on Green Dot’s struggle to turn around Locke. There are no miracles. It’s a long, hard slog.
Los Angeles public schools waste $500 million a year to pay teachers for completing graduate courses that don’t improve teaching, concludes a report by the National Council on Teacher Quality. The money would be better spent paying more to teachers who deliver results, such as higher test scores, or to attract proven talent to the system, NCTQ’s Kate Walsh told the Board of Education at last week’s meeting, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Nearly all school districts use a pay scale that rewards teachers for years of experience and for additional graduate credits earned. Experience makes a difference in the first years of teaching; researchers have found no link between graduate courses or master’s degrees and teaching effectiveness.
Other findings included:
• Only a third of Los Angeles teachers graduated from a school ranked as either “most” or “more” selective.
• Principals don’t take advantage of flexibility and authority they already have in hiring and evaluating teachers.
Teachers are observed by only their principal and only once every other year. That’s not enough, the “road map” concluded.
In addition, the online teacher evaluation system requires principals to provide documentation if they check “needs improvement” for three or more of 27 indicators. There’s no need to document a satisfactory rating. Administrators may decide a negative rating ” is not worth the effort,” concluded the report, which called for “a high burden of evidence and feedback for every rating — both negative and affirmative.”
The report also criticized teacher assignment policies, saying principals are forced to hire teachers who may not be a good fit and lay off teachers based on seniority rather than performance.
In addition, teachers aren’t required to be on campus for the eight-hour work day, making it hard to schedule collaboration and joint planning.
A 5 percent budget cut for Tacoma Public Schools could trigger layoffs for one quarter to one half the teachers at “turnaround” schools, concludes a study by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington.
“Last in, first out” policies disproportionately affect Washington state schools receiving federal School Improvement Grants (SIGs). intended to transform chronically low-performing schools.
Many teachers in these schools are newly hired, chosen on the basis of high ability and commitment to education of disadvantaged children.
In Washington’s SIG schools, about 23% of teachers are in their first three years of teaching. That’s nearly twice the proportion of new teachers in other schools in the same districts.
LIFO layoffs could destabilize schools and undermine turnaround efforts, the study warns.
Under a court-ordered settlement, Los Angeles schools with high-need students and young teachers will be protected from layoffs.
Education Experts are discussing how to measure teacher effectiveness on National Journal.
Catholic K-8 schools in Los Angeles will add 20 days to the school year for a total of 200 days of instruction. Los Angeles’ public school year has been cut to 175 days to save money, notes the LA Times.
With 210 elementary schools spread across Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, the archdiocese runs one of the largest school systems in California, larger than the public school districts in San Francisco or Sacramento. It has earned accolades for operating well-run, academically rigorous schools that serve many low-income students.
Parents will pay an extra month’s tuition. Charges range from $200 a month in low-income areas to $800 a month in affluent areas. The archdiocese will try to offer aid to parents who can’t afford the extra cost.
Teachers will receive a 10 percent raise for the extra month of work.
Catholic high schools set their own schedules.
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