MCPS Superintendent Dr. Jerry Weast has announced his intention to recommend approval of the first charter school in Montgomery County. This recommendation comes after an extensive review of charter applications by a broad-based review team within MCPS. MCEA’s President, Doug Prouty, has been a participant on the district’s charter application review team. The Superintendent is recommended approval of the application for a Community Montessori Public Charter School sponsored by Crossway Community Inc. of Kensington Maryland. The Superintendent’s charter recommendation memo has details on both charter proposals submitted this year.
MCEA does not have a blanket policy either in favor or opposed to charter schools in Montgomery County. We have participated in the evaluation of charter school applications in the past: have supported the applications in some case and opposed them in others, based on the merits of the particular proposals. To us, key questions include:
1. Is it a proposal designed to educate all students, or is it driven by a desire of the founders to create an alternative program for their own children?
2. How will students be chosen? Will all students have access? Or will access be limited by things such as a lack of special education services, ESOL services or transportation?
3. Is it being designed to meet the needs of low-income, at-risk students or the needs of selected “gifted and talented” students?
4. Is the proposal financially viable? How are they going to afford a) a building, b) longer school year, c) smaller class sizes, etc.?
5. What outside interests are involved? Is it part of a corporate chain charter operator? An outside “education management organization”?
6. How will the school be run? How will decisions be made about curriculum, instruction, professional development, scheduling, human capital, etc.?
7. What kind of impact would creation of the school have on traditional MCPS schools? Is there a bias towards ‘creaming’ more motivated and more successful students/families out of MCPS schools?
Based on the analysis of the Crossway Community application, MCEA President Doug Prouty expressed his support for the creation of the Community Montessori Public Charter School. If approved by the Board of Education, MCEA looks forward to working with Crossway Community to create a truly unique environment for teaching and learning.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Understanding the Council's Final Action on the MCPS Budget
The politicking and posturing around the MCPS budget continues. So MCEA thought we'd share some concise summaries of the final action on the MCPS operating budget for next year.
The County Council cut an additional $47 million out of the MCPS budget, beyond the budget proposed by County Executive Ike Leggett. In doing so, they decided to abandon any effort to seek a waiver of the state's Maintenance of Effort requirement; triggering a penalty of $26 million in lost state education aid in FY13 (the Council is hoping the General Assembly will waive the penalty).
The Council also exercised their authority to specify cuts to the MCPS budget by budget category. The Council cut $18.7 million from the employee benefits category and $27.9 million from the other, programatic budget categories.
As a result of contract negotiations with MCEA and the other unions, the Board of Education exceeded the Council's $18.7 million cut in employee benefits: The Board of Education was able to reduce employee benefit costs by $21 million. Read MCEA's Statement on Benefit Changes to understand how those savings were realized.
The Council also cut $27.9 million from the other, programatic budget lines. The Superintendent had originally identified $45 million in possible cuts. The lower final number enabled the Board of Education to avoid a second year's increase in average class size, but still had to identify $27.9 million in savings. MCEA prepared a chart that lists out the final programatic cuts necessitated by the Council's final action on the budget.
It is a little difficult to understand how some on the County Council can claim their budget action doesn't impact the classroom, when they specifically cut $27.9 million out of the programatic budget lines in the MCPS budget.
And as teachers, it is also a little offensive to hear comments that cuts to teachers salaries and benefits "don't impact the classroom". Last time we checked, teachers were IN the classrooom - every day. The motivation and committment of the teaching workforce makes a difference in the success of our students.
The County Council cut an additional $47 million out of the MCPS budget, beyond the budget proposed by County Executive Ike Leggett. In doing so, they decided to abandon any effort to seek a waiver of the state's Maintenance of Effort requirement; triggering a penalty of $26 million in lost state education aid in FY13 (the Council is hoping the General Assembly will waive the penalty).
The Council also exercised their authority to specify cuts to the MCPS budget by budget category. The Council cut $18.7 million from the employee benefits category and $27.9 million from the other, programatic budget categories.
As a result of contract negotiations with MCEA and the other unions, the Board of Education exceeded the Council's $18.7 million cut in employee benefits: The Board of Education was able to reduce employee benefit costs by $21 million. Read MCEA's Statement on Benefit Changes to understand how those savings were realized.
The Council also cut $27.9 million from the other, programatic budget lines. The Superintendent had originally identified $45 million in possible cuts. The lower final number enabled the Board of Education to avoid a second year's increase in average class size, but still had to identify $27.9 million in savings. MCEA prepared a chart that lists out the final programatic cuts necessitated by the Council's final action on the budget.
It is a little difficult to understand how some on the County Council can claim their budget action doesn't impact the classroom, when they specifically cut $27.9 million out of the programatic budget lines in the MCPS budget.
And as teachers, it is also a little offensive to hear comments that cuts to teachers salaries and benefits "don't impact the classroom". Last time we checked, teachers were IN the classrooom - every day. The motivation and committment of the teaching workforce makes a difference in the success of our students.
Monday, June 06, 2011
NY Times on the MCPS Teacher Evaluation System
Read what the New York Times has to say about the conflict between Maryland's "Race-to-the-Top" application and the highly acclaimed teacher evaluation system here in Montgomery County.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Helping Teachers Help Themselves
By MICHAEL WINERIP
Published: June 5, 2011
ROCKVILLE, Md. — The Montgomery County Public Schools system here has a highly regarded program for evaluating teachers, providing them extra support if they are performing poorly and getting rid of those who do not improve.
The program, Peer Assistance and Review — known as PAR — uses several hundred senior teachers to mentor both newcomers and struggling veterans. If the mentoring does not work, the PAR panel — made up of eight teachers and eight principals — can vote to fire the teacher.
Sitting in on two cases last week, I could not tell from the comments which of the panel members were teachers and which were principals. In one of the cases, 11 of the 12 panel members present voted to follow a principal’s recommendation and discipline the teacher; in the other, they decided in a 10-to-2 vote to reject a principal’s recommendation and support the teacher.
In the 11 years since PAR began, the panels have voted to fire 200 teachers, and 300 more have left rather than go through the PAR process, said Jerry D. Weast, the superintendent of the Montgomery County system, which enrolls 145,000 students, one-third of them from low-income families. In the 10 years before PAR, he said, five teachers were fired. “It took three to five years to build the trust to get PAR in place,” he explained. “Teachers had to see we weren’t playing gotcha.”
Doug Prouty, the teachers’ union president, said, “It wouldn’t work without the level of trust we have here.”
Nancy S. Grasmick, Maryland’s state superintendent of schools, called PAR “an excellent system for professional development.” Senior staff members from the United States Department of Education have visited here to study the program, and Montgomery County officials have gone to Washington to explain how it works. In February, the district was one of 12 featured in Denver at a Department of Education conference on labor-management collaboration.
Dr. Weast, who calls the United States secretary of education, Arne Duncan, “a good friend,” said, “He’s told me, ‘Jerry, you’re going where the country needs to go.’ ”
Unfortunately, federal dollars from the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program are not going where Dr. Weast and the PAR program need to go. Montgomery County schools were entitled to $12 million from Race to the Top, but Dr. Weast said he would not take the money because the grant required districts to include students’ state test results as a measure of teacher quality. “We don’t believe the tests are reliable,” he said. “You don’t want to turn your system into a test factory.”
Race to the Top aims to spur student growth by improving teacher quality, which is exactly what Montgomery County is doing. Sad to say, the district is getting the right results the wrong way.
It does not seem to matter that 84 percent of Montgomery County students go on to college and that 63 percent earn degrees there — the very variables that President Obama has said should be the true measure of academic success. It does not seem to matter that 2.5 percent of all black children in America who pass an Advanced Placement test live in Montgomery County, more than five times its share of the nation’s black population.
The 12 states that were awarded the billions of dollars in Race to the Top grants are using student scores as a measure of teachers’ worth. New York has decided that state tests will count for up to 40 percent of a teacher’s grade; Maryland does not have a magic number yet.
Mr. Duncan’s supporters have marveled at how he has used Race to the Top money to pressure states into adopting his education agenda. Dr. Grasmick, the Maryland superintendent, said the administration made it clear that if a state wanted to win a grant, the proposal had to include a formula for calculating student growth. Maryland toed the line and was awarded $250 million.
Asked if the state could make an exception for Montgomery because of the PAR program’s history of success, Dr. Grasmick said Gov. Martin O’Malley had been told that no modifications were allowed. Nor are districts permitted to appeal to federal officials, said Ann Whalen, director of the Implementation and Support Unit at the Education Department.
So here is where things stand: Montgomery’s PAR program, which has worked beautifully for 11 years, is not acceptable. But the Maryland plan — which does not exist yet — meets federal standards.
Dr. Weast said a major failing of Race to the Top’s teacher-evaluation system is that it is being imposed from above rather than being developed by the teachers and administrators who will use it. “People don’t tear down what they help build,” he said.
Maybe that is why Race to the Top has been divisive in so many places. In Maryland, teachers’ unions in 22 of the 24 districts refused to sign the state’s grant proposal. In New York and New Jersey, the competition has made the war between the unions and state officials even nastier.
Every politician who micromanages education today should visit a PAR meeting.
At a session on Thursday, a principal recommended that the panel give a tenured middle school teacher a year to improve before deciding whether to dismiss her. The principal argued that the woman did not meet three of the district’s six teaching standards: how to effectively teach the students, how to assess students and help them grow academically, and how to act professionally.
Among other things, the principal told the panel that the teacher’s lesson plans were too vague and created on the fly; that her students were not being challenged; that her assessment of them was weak, and that most were given A’s; and that she repeatedly missed meetings and did not work well with her colleagues.
A senior teacher testified that she had not noticed problems when observing the classroom. The middle school teacher then defended herself and was questioned by the panel, which discussed the case after she left.
Panel members said they were concerned that the teacher had not saved her lesson plans from year to year; that the principal had given her an improvement plan in October, but she had not begun to carry it out until January; and that she complained about having insufficient curriculum materials, but had not tried to correct the problem.
After 90 minutes, panel members voted to provide her with weekly mentoring visits from a senior teacher, with the caveat that if she did not show improvement she could be dismissed.
Administrators and union officials credited the good will developed through PAR for some of the district’s other successes. Five years ago, the district created a budget committee, half of whose members belonged to unions. Last year, when Larry Bowers, the district’s finance director, said the schools could not afford a scheduled 5.3 percent raise, the teachers’ union agreed. “Saved us $89 million,” Mr. Bowers said.
Mr. Prouty, the union president, said he knew Mr. Bowers was telling the truth. “We formulate the budget; we know where the money is, which makes us much more trusting,” said Mr. Prouty, whose members also agreed to forgo a raise next year.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Helping Teachers Help Themselves
By MICHAEL WINERIP
Published: June 5, 2011
ROCKVILLE, Md. — The Montgomery County Public Schools system here has a highly regarded program for evaluating teachers, providing them extra support if they are performing poorly and getting rid of those who do not improve.
The program, Peer Assistance and Review — known as PAR — uses several hundred senior teachers to mentor both newcomers and struggling veterans. If the mentoring does not work, the PAR panel — made up of eight teachers and eight principals — can vote to fire the teacher.
Sitting in on two cases last week, I could not tell from the comments which of the panel members were teachers and which were principals. In one of the cases, 11 of the 12 panel members present voted to follow a principal’s recommendation and discipline the teacher; in the other, they decided in a 10-to-2 vote to reject a principal’s recommendation and support the teacher.
In the 11 years since PAR began, the panels have voted to fire 200 teachers, and 300 more have left rather than go through the PAR process, said Jerry D. Weast, the superintendent of the Montgomery County system, which enrolls 145,000 students, one-third of them from low-income families. In the 10 years before PAR, he said, five teachers were fired. “It took three to five years to build the trust to get PAR in place,” he explained. “Teachers had to see we weren’t playing gotcha.”
Doug Prouty, the teachers’ union president, said, “It wouldn’t work without the level of trust we have here.”
Nancy S. Grasmick, Maryland’s state superintendent of schools, called PAR “an excellent system for professional development.” Senior staff members from the United States Department of Education have visited here to study the program, and Montgomery County officials have gone to Washington to explain how it works. In February, the district was one of 12 featured in Denver at a Department of Education conference on labor-management collaboration.
Dr. Weast, who calls the United States secretary of education, Arne Duncan, “a good friend,” said, “He’s told me, ‘Jerry, you’re going where the country needs to go.’ ”
Unfortunately, federal dollars from the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program are not going where Dr. Weast and the PAR program need to go. Montgomery County schools were entitled to $12 million from Race to the Top, but Dr. Weast said he would not take the money because the grant required districts to include students’ state test results as a measure of teacher quality. “We don’t believe the tests are reliable,” he said. “You don’t want to turn your system into a test factory.”
Race to the Top aims to spur student growth by improving teacher quality, which is exactly what Montgomery County is doing. Sad to say, the district is getting the right results the wrong way.
It does not seem to matter that 84 percent of Montgomery County students go on to college and that 63 percent earn degrees there — the very variables that President Obama has said should be the true measure of academic success. It does not seem to matter that 2.5 percent of all black children in America who pass an Advanced Placement test live in Montgomery County, more than five times its share of the nation’s black population.
The 12 states that were awarded the billions of dollars in Race to the Top grants are using student scores as a measure of teachers’ worth. New York has decided that state tests will count for up to 40 percent of a teacher’s grade; Maryland does not have a magic number yet.
Mr. Duncan’s supporters have marveled at how he has used Race to the Top money to pressure states into adopting his education agenda. Dr. Grasmick, the Maryland superintendent, said the administration made it clear that if a state wanted to win a grant, the proposal had to include a formula for calculating student growth. Maryland toed the line and was awarded $250 million.
Asked if the state could make an exception for Montgomery because of the PAR program’s history of success, Dr. Grasmick said Gov. Martin O’Malley had been told that no modifications were allowed. Nor are districts permitted to appeal to federal officials, said Ann Whalen, director of the Implementation and Support Unit at the Education Department.
So here is where things stand: Montgomery’s PAR program, which has worked beautifully for 11 years, is not acceptable. But the Maryland plan — which does not exist yet — meets federal standards.
Dr. Weast said a major failing of Race to the Top’s teacher-evaluation system is that it is being imposed from above rather than being developed by the teachers and administrators who will use it. “People don’t tear down what they help build,” he said.
Maybe that is why Race to the Top has been divisive in so many places. In Maryland, teachers’ unions in 22 of the 24 districts refused to sign the state’s grant proposal. In New York and New Jersey, the competition has made the war between the unions and state officials even nastier.
Every politician who micromanages education today should visit a PAR meeting.
At a session on Thursday, a principal recommended that the panel give a tenured middle school teacher a year to improve before deciding whether to dismiss her. The principal argued that the woman did not meet three of the district’s six teaching standards: how to effectively teach the students, how to assess students and help them grow academically, and how to act professionally.
Among other things, the principal told the panel that the teacher’s lesson plans were too vague and created on the fly; that her students were not being challenged; that her assessment of them was weak, and that most were given A’s; and that she repeatedly missed meetings and did not work well with her colleagues.
A senior teacher testified that she had not noticed problems when observing the classroom. The middle school teacher then defended herself and was questioned by the panel, which discussed the case after she left.
Panel members said they were concerned that the teacher had not saved her lesson plans from year to year; that the principal had given her an improvement plan in October, but she had not begun to carry it out until January; and that she complained about having insufficient curriculum materials, but had not tried to correct the problem.
After 90 minutes, panel members voted to provide her with weekly mentoring visits from a senior teacher, with the caveat that if she did not show improvement she could be dismissed.
Administrators and union officials credited the good will developed through PAR for some of the district’s other successes. Five years ago, the district created a budget committee, half of whose members belonged to unions. Last year, when Larry Bowers, the district’s finance director, said the schools could not afford a scheduled 5.3 percent raise, the teachers’ union agreed. “Saved us $89 million,” Mr. Bowers said.
Mr. Prouty, the union president, said he knew Mr. Bowers was telling the truth. “We formulate the budget; we know where the money is, which makes us much more trusting,” said Mr. Prouty, whose members also agreed to forgo a raise next year.
# # #
An Inappropriate Response
In a time of great economic turmoil and uncertainty it would seem that when a group of people save taxpayers some money, this might be a considered a good thing. One might even consider a “thank you” in order. Instead, on Friday, one county council member called this savings “bulls**t.” As we say in the classroom, that’s an inappropriate response.
In fact, there’s an assertion that we’ve been hiding something as teachers over the past few years. Indeed we have. We’ve been hiding:
• the fact that we’re teaching more children in our classes, who due to the economic climate carry an ever increasing set of needs, that we as educators have a moral obligation to try and meet – and we do so with fewer and fewer resources in our classrooms
• the fact that federal and state accountability levels continue to rise each and every year – the bar gets higher and higher each and every year
• the fact that the number of assessments for children has risen dramatically, and that grading and planning have now become a significant part of every teacher’s evening and weekend activities
• that we’ve given up raises for 2-3 years, and many of us have taken second jobs, simply to pay our bills
During this time, we have continued to do right by children, and do the right thing for our community. We have diligently and without interruption met our obligation to what is arguably the best school system in the nation, and we’ve been part of saving over $300 million dollars over these past three years. We’ve done so collaboratively with our school system, as opposed to the confrontational approach used by the council with county employees.
Make no mistake. Public schools are the bedrock of an effective democracy. Highly committed educators, who toil in classrooms and at home, giving of their time and expertise, staff our schools. We do this because we care deeply about our community and more importantly, about our children. It’s sad that at the end of a school year, the message that we as teachers get from our county council is filled with anger and confrontation. It would have been nice to hear “thank you” for the tireless work we undertook with 142,000 children in our care, and the personal sacrifices we have again made this year.
In fact, there’s an assertion that we’ve been hiding something as teachers over the past few years. Indeed we have. We’ve been hiding:
• the fact that we’re teaching more children in our classes, who due to the economic climate carry an ever increasing set of needs, that we as educators have a moral obligation to try and meet – and we do so with fewer and fewer resources in our classrooms
• the fact that federal and state accountability levels continue to rise each and every year – the bar gets higher and higher each and every year
• the fact that the number of assessments for children has risen dramatically, and that grading and planning have now become a significant part of every teacher’s evening and weekend activities
• that we’ve given up raises for 2-3 years, and many of us have taken second jobs, simply to pay our bills
During this time, we have continued to do right by children, and do the right thing for our community. We have diligently and without interruption met our obligation to what is arguably the best school system in the nation, and we’ve been part of saving over $300 million dollars over these past three years. We’ve done so collaboratively with our school system, as opposed to the confrontational approach used by the council with county employees.
Make no mistake. Public schools are the bedrock of an effective democracy. Highly committed educators, who toil in classrooms and at home, giving of their time and expertise, staff our schools. We do this because we care deeply about our community and more importantly, about our children. It’s sad that at the end of a school year, the message that we as teachers get from our county council is filled with anger and confrontation. It would have been nice to hear “thank you” for the tireless work we undertook with 142,000 children in our care, and the personal sacrifices we have again made this year.
Friday, June 03, 2011
The Smart Ones Will Leave
Interesting posting to the Education Matters blog on the Bethesda magazine website. We wonder what the County Council would say in response?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Smart Ones Will Leave
By Julie Rasicot
Jun 3, 2011 - 10:18 AM
“The smart ones will leave. They already are.”
That was the answer when I asked a friend, a veteran educator in the Montgomery County Public Schools, how the recent budget cuts are affecting her high school in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster.
Bad economic times have forced county officials to cut budgets across the board for fiscal 2012 and they made sure that MCPS shouldered its share of the burden. On May 26, the County Council finalized county spending for next year, reducing County Executive Ike Leggett’s proposed school spending by $45 million and the school board’s request by $127 million.
The fallout has begun: The loss of expected salary increases, higher benefits costs plus anticipated student loads of 160 or more students next year are forcing some of our best teachers to consider leaving the classroom for good.
“The weak teachers aren’t going to leave. The smart people are going to leave because they can do other things,” my friend said. “We’re not losing the slackers.”
At least one teacher she knows has already accepted a job at a local private school. Even though private schools traditionally pay less than MCPS, the budget cuts mean that this teacher will now take home about the same salary at her new school—and her child can attend for free.
Another teacher has decided to give up coaching his school’s sports teams because he can make better money bartending, she said. Meanwhile, other teachers are scrambling to pick up stipends for after school activities.
Yet another teacher, highly acclaimed for his teaching of math, is seriously considering finding another job. The thought of trying to be an effective teacher with a student load next year of possibly as many as 175 students—plus the class prep, planning and grading for those students—may push him out the door.
“Think about talking to 175 students every day,” she said.
And my friend?
Over the past three years, she’s lost nearly $30,000 in anticipated salary increases—money that she’d planned on when deciding to make major expenditures, like buying a new furnace for her house. Eighteen years with MCPS and she recently began looking for waitressing jobs to make ends meet.
Take the loss of good, dedicated teachers and combine it with the cuts in staff who deal with at-risk kids—14 academic intervention teachers and eight reading recovery teachers across MCPS, for example—and what happens?
The students from educated families with financial means may not suffer so much because their families can afford to supplement what may be lost in the classroom. But how about the kids on the lower economic spectrum? If we lose good teachers, who will help them?
Even though the school board voted to maintain class sizes in next year’s budget, scheduling issues mean some classes will be larger.
“You can’t schedule that everybody has classes at 32 students. We have more classes and more kids, more needy kids. The economy has changed,” my friend explains.
“People don’t understand the impact of what will happen if you don’t have good teachers. How do we make them understand that?”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Smart Ones Will Leave
By Julie Rasicot
Jun 3, 2011 - 10:18 AM
“The smart ones will leave. They already are.”
That was the answer when I asked a friend, a veteran educator in the Montgomery County Public Schools, how the recent budget cuts are affecting her high school in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster.
Bad economic times have forced county officials to cut budgets across the board for fiscal 2012 and they made sure that MCPS shouldered its share of the burden. On May 26, the County Council finalized county spending for next year, reducing County Executive Ike Leggett’s proposed school spending by $45 million and the school board’s request by $127 million.
The fallout has begun: The loss of expected salary increases, higher benefits costs plus anticipated student loads of 160 or more students next year are forcing some of our best teachers to consider leaving the classroom for good.
“The weak teachers aren’t going to leave. The smart people are going to leave because they can do other things,” my friend said. “We’re not losing the slackers.”
At least one teacher she knows has already accepted a job at a local private school. Even though private schools traditionally pay less than MCPS, the budget cuts mean that this teacher will now take home about the same salary at her new school—and her child can attend for free.
Another teacher has decided to give up coaching his school’s sports teams because he can make better money bartending, she said. Meanwhile, other teachers are scrambling to pick up stipends for after school activities.
Yet another teacher, highly acclaimed for his teaching of math, is seriously considering finding another job. The thought of trying to be an effective teacher with a student load next year of possibly as many as 175 students—plus the class prep, planning and grading for those students—may push him out the door.
“Think about talking to 175 students every day,” she said.
And my friend?
Over the past three years, she’s lost nearly $30,000 in anticipated salary increases—money that she’d planned on when deciding to make major expenditures, like buying a new furnace for her house. Eighteen years with MCPS and she recently began looking for waitressing jobs to make ends meet.
Take the loss of good, dedicated teachers and combine it with the cuts in staff who deal with at-risk kids—14 academic intervention teachers and eight reading recovery teachers across MCPS, for example—and what happens?
The students from educated families with financial means may not suffer so much because their families can afford to supplement what may be lost in the classroom. But how about the kids on the lower economic spectrum? If we lose good teachers, who will help them?
Even though the school board voted to maintain class sizes in next year’s budget, scheduling issues mean some classes will be larger.
“You can’t schedule that everybody has classes at 32 students. We have more classes and more kids, more needy kids. The economy has changed,” my friend explains.
“People don’t understand the impact of what will happen if you don’t have good teachers. How do we make them understand that?”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)