Feeling Rather Desperate

My state has succumbed to the Race to the Top initiative. In order to qualify for a federal grant that we may or may not be selected for, the governor called a special session of our state legislature to upend teacher tenure and our evaluation process. Value-added assessment scores will now be used for up to 50% of each teacher's now annual evaluation. And damned if he didn't want it to be 51%--enough to fire a teacher. Here's the letter I wrote to my state senator and representative* (personal info hidden or reworded):

Dear Representative ###### and Senator ######,
I am writing to encourage you to support fair reform of our state’s tenure laws. As a teacher in a Title 1 school in the ###### School System, I have seen some teachers who need to retire or be fired, and support any change to tenure laws that would enable the judicious removal of them. However, I believe Gov. ######’s proposal to tie tenure to the value-added assessment system is unfair for several reasons.

First, let me state that I have great value-added scores. My position is not endangered by the use of value-added scores to evaluate me, and I achieved these scores while teaching in an inclusion classroom where approximately 50% of my students qualify for free/reduced price lunches. Why am I speaking out? Because, to me, Gov. ######’s plan is highly flawed. The most prominent flaw of his plan is to make testing high-stakes for teachers, but not for students. A teacher is then at the mercy of her students’ performances, however capricious these performances may or may not be, but nothing will happen to a student who willfully decides to fail a test. If the state wants to judge teachers by value-added scores, then please help level the playing field. Please insist that student accountability also become a feature of our state’s testing policies.

Secondly, value-added scores are tied to state tests, given to third through eighth graders. How will teachers who teach in untested areas be affected? How will the state determine accountability for kindergarten, first, and second grade teachers? How about high school Latin teachers? Or teachers of European history? Or physical education teachers of any grade level? Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t found any discussion of assessing teachers except for those who teach in grades and subjects that administer the state test. Adding assessment to the primary grades is a staggeringly bad idea—to put five, six, and seven year olds through the stress of taking a state-mandated test would be developmentally inappropriate. Adding tests to Latin I classes or health classes would be cost-prohibitive. So, how will these teachers be assessed? Will the assessment be as high-stakes as the one that will be used to judge third through eighth grade teachers? Please ask these questions of Gov. ######.

Finally, where on earth will our state find teachers to fill our classrooms if we fire beginning teachers because of poor value-added scores? Teaching is an extremely taxing profession. I will readily admit that my first five years in the classroom were spent becoming a competent teacher, often at the expense of my home and family. Even now, in my thirteenth year of teaching, I spend hours and hours out of the classroom preparing lessons, grading papers, and researching new teaching and management methods. It was even more difficult when I was a new teacher and learning the curriculum for six different subject areas. Thankfully, I had time to work out the kinks of my pedagogy, and quickly became a very competent teacher. Are we going to kick today’s new teachers to the curb, or give them time to develop the skills needed to be a quality teacher? It would behoove our state more to direct money to a quality support system for new teachers than to fire a first year teacher for her poor test scores. Let’s try to do this instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water, or the rate of incoming teachers will never meet the loss of teachers to attrition.

Thank you so much for the time you’ve spent reading this. I encourage you to ask some hard questions and refuse to let a vote be railroaded through in an effort to grab a multi-million dollar carrot. Please encourage your colleagues to do the same.

Respectfully,
Elementary Matters

I received no reply from the state senator but did receive this reply from my state representative:

Dear Ms. Matters,

You ask some very good questions and so far, the administration has not been able to give us specifics, for various reasons...mostly they are "protecting the integrity and secrecy of our state's application for funds."

We will continue to press for information and I greatly appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

Keep up the great work.

#####

I did all that I could, and greatly emphasize with our union's president who wrote:

"I know in my heart I have failed Xxxxxx’s Teachers. Not only have I failed Xxxxxx’s Teachers but also I feel as if I have brought a pox on our members. I am concluding the most anguished week of my life during this special legislative session. Before this week, the worst event in my life was waiting by my mother’s bedside to see if her stroke would kill or paralyze her. I know many of you are angry, mad and frustrated and I want you to know that I am as well."

Before I read his letter, I hated the man. I felt he had let us down. But now I understand that he was put between a rock and a hard place and had to agree to abide by whatever happened because the governor had all the votes he needed.

I had naively believed that when Obama was elected to office that the hated and despised NCLB crap would end. I didn't know Obama was driving a U-Haul full of his own crap into the White House. I have no one left that I care to vote for, and I've voted in every election since I was 18 years old (except Reagan's first election--not registered and had a new baby). I don't think I'll make it seven more years until retirement. Between PITA parents and now PITA governors and presidents, I think I'd be happier asking, "Would you like fries with that?"

*I also wrote to the governor about 2 weeks before this (on Christmas day, if memory doesn't fail me), and I never heard back from him, either.