In the past year we have seen a number of parental groups, student groups and teacher groups opt out of, or refuse to administer, standardized tests. While controversial, in some instances we see this as something that is protecting children and enhancing their education. Check out this article that covers what NEA and AFT think about teachers refusing to administer standardized tests and how they will defend them!
Thanks to Bethesda magazine for the following story noting that MCPS graduates out perform the state and the nation on the ACT college admissions test. Like public schools across the nation, we continue to face significant challenges to close achievement gaps. But we should not lose sight of what we continue to accomplish.
MCPS Graduates Outperform State, Nation on ACT Tests
The Class of 2014 also slightly outperformed the two previous graduating classes on the standardized test
Andrew Metcalf
Montgomery County Public Schools graduates outperformed their peers in the state and the nation on ACT college admission tests last school year, according to MCPS.
The Class of 2014 earned an average score of 23.7 out of 36, more than one point higher than the state average of 22.6 and more than two points higher than the 21.0 average in the country.
The score was also a slight improvement over the Class of 2013, which averaged a 23.5, and Class of 2012, which averaged a 23.2.
“MCPS graduates are showing steady improvement on the ACT and are demonstrating increased readiness for college-level work,” MCPS Superintendent Joshua Starr said in a press statement. “This is good news, but we know there is a lot more work to be done to ensure that all of our students are ready for success in postsecondary education and beyond.”
The ACT is similar to the SAT and is used by college admissions officers to evaluate prospective students. It includes four sections—English, math, reading and science—and students receive scores between 0 and 36.
Here’s how MCPS students did on each section:
23.4 on English
23.8 on math
23.8 on reading
23.4 on science
A total of 3153 MCPS students took the ACT last school year, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the total number of graduates, according to the school system.
Increased Child Poverty Rate Disproportionately Impacts The Nation's Youngest Learners "The Annie E. Casey Foundation is out with its 25th KIDS COUNT Data Book, which has been providing the public with an annual glimpse into the well being of American children for the past quarter-century. As big anniversaries do, this one provides a natural opening to look at how we have fared. Trends were both positive and troubling during a time of major demographic shifts: The nation’s population of children climbed from 64 million to 74 million. The percentage of white children declined, Latinos doubled and mothers of young kids entered the labor market in record numbers. On the bright side, more children are attending preschool than in 1990. The teen pregnancy rate is at a record low. Juvenile crime is down, and so is juvenile incarceration, though the United States still has a juvenile incarceration rate disproportionately much higher than other developed countries.
But despite the advances, there has been a recent uptick in the single most important factor for predicting a child’s school readiness and life outcomes generally: whether or not he or she lives in poverty. After recessions end, the child poverty rate tends to continue climbing, and current circumstances appear no different. Even with different ways to measure it and different conclusions, KIDS COUNT shows a reversal of some of the gains made earlier in the past quarter-century, with approximately 16.4 million kids officially living in poverty in 2012. The number of children in single-parent homes was up, too: 35 percent, versus 25 percent in 1990...."
Lily Eskelen Garcia was elected as the new President of the National Education Association at the NEA's annual convention held in July. The Washington Post describes her as "a telegenic, guitar-slinging firebrand".
The renowned satirical publication The Onion has published a searing commentary on the role of charter schools in public education today.
There are any number of high quality charter schools across the country, and large numbers of hard-working, highly skilled teachers working in them. But in places like Washington DC and New York City, the rapid expanse of charter schools is raising serious systemic issues. In Washington DC, the public school system is struggling to build and renovate schools - and redraw attendance boundaries - to align resources with students. Yet a separate body continues to approve new charter schools that wreck havoc with any kind of long-range facility planning for the public schools. In New York City, the annual lottery for charter schools has made a mockery of "parent choice". As this Onion article so clearly points out: parents do not "choose" charters; it's a crap-shoot. Some children win.... most lose.
Thanks to the Onion for showing that one good parody can do more to educate people than a ream of policy papers!
Today's Washington Post ran an important story reporting on new research calling into question the use of high-stakes student testing in teacher evaluation.
"In the first large-scale analysis of new systems that evaluate teachers based partly on student test scores, two researchers found little or no correlation between quality teaching and the appraisals teachers received.
The study, published Tuesday in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association, is the latest in a growing body of research that has cast doubt on whether it is possible for states to use empirical data in identifying good and bad teachers..." (read more)
In conjunction with the National Education Association (NEA) the MCEA Center for Teacher Leadership is launching a new "training hub" to help build the organizational capacity of local teacher unions to be advocates for improving the quality of teaching and learning.
MCEA's experience in creating and using successful programs such as peer assistance and review, interest-based bargaining, authentic advocacy for school improvement, collaborative problem-solving, strategic leadership development, relational organization and organizational restructuring will provide the basis for professional development programs for NEA teacher union leaders from across the country.
The Center has just posted a job announcement for a Teachers Union Training Project Coordinator to manage the project. Click on that link for more information. The one-year position will begin this summer, and is subject to renewal based on the success of the project.
The deadline for application is Friday May 23, 2014. Cover letters and resumes can be emailed to Tom Israel, MCEA Executive Director, at tisrael@mceanea.org, or by USMail at MCEA, 12 Taft Court, Rockville MD 20850.
additional legislative seats in Districts 16, 17 and 20
The Montgomery County Education
Association (MCEA) is proud to announce additional results of its candidate
screening and recommendation process for legislative races in the upcoming
primary election. MCEA represents more than 12,000 professional educators
employed in the Montgomery County Public Schools. MCEA’s recommended candidates
will appear on its widely recognized ‘Apple Ballot’.
District
16
In Legislative District 16
(Bethesda), MCEA is pleased to announce its support for Susan Lee to fill the State Senate seat being vacated by Brian
Frosh. Ms. Lee has been a strong advocate for public education throughout her
career as a state delegate. MCEA is proud to have supported Ms. Lee in her
first run for office, and has recommend support for her re-election ever since.
For House of Delegates in District
16, MCEA is announcing its support for Bill
Frick and Hrant Jamgochian, who
join Ariana Kelly as MCEA’s recommended candidates in D16. Mr. Frick is a
favorable incumbent with a positive voting record on education issues. Through
his service on the Ways & Means Committee, Mr. Frick has been a valuable
voice advocating for education funding.
MCEA is recommending Hrant Jamgochian to fill the vacant seat in this
district. MCEA’s interview team was impressed by Mr. Jamgochian’s policy
background and insight. His record of community involvement has prepared him
well for public service.
District
17
MCEA is recommending Andrew Platt to fill the vacant House
of Delegates position in Legislative District 17. Mr. Platt’s commitment to
ensuring that students from less privileged backgrounds have equal
opportunities and his impressive knowledge of social policy issues stood out to
our interview team. He joins Kumar Barve and James Gilchrist as MCEA’s recommended
candidates for delegate in District 17. MCEA has made no recommendation in the
District 17 Senate race.
District
20
In Legislative District 20, MCEA is
pleased to announce its recommendations for Will Smith and David Moon
for House of Delegates, complementing MCEA’s previous recommendations for the
re-election of incumbent Delegate Sheila Hixson and incumbent State Senator
Jamie Raskin. Will Smith’s background in
civil rights advocacy and broad experience with a range of non-profits have
prepared him well to advocate for the students of District 20. David Moon is an
experienced political and community activist who has a detailed grasp of
education issues and the social issues that affect public education.
These recommendations are in
addition to an earlier round of recommendations made earlier this year. A full
list of MCEA’s recommended candidates to date can be found at www.mceanea.org/pdf/2014MCEARC.pdf .
MCEA's recommendations are decided
by a vote of our Representative Assembly, our governing body made up of
delegates from schools across the county. MCEA advertised our candidate
selection process in numerous ways, and contacted all known candidates.
Questionnaires were sent to every candidate who requested one, and a large
committee of rank-and-file teachers interviewed each candidate. The committee
then made recommendations to the MCEA Board of Directors, who in turn made
recommendations to the Representative Assembly. All recommendations require a
supermajority vote at each step in the process. MCEA’s candidate recommendation
process is uniquely transparent. A
description of our process, and the criteria MCEA uses in evaluating candidates
are posted on our website at www.mceanea.org/pdf/MCEA2013CRProcess.pdf .
All of the questionnaires submitted
by candidates will also be posted publicly to our website later this spring,
once we have completed our recommendation process for all races.
Recommendations for County Executive and the remaining seats on the Montgomery
County Council will be considered later this spring.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Maryland takes up debate about school testing
today at a House of Delegates hearing.
Del. Eric Luedtke, D-Burtonsville,
is sponsoring legislation that would cancel this spring's Maryland School
Assessments - testing that is required under federal law, but states can request
a waiver.
Parents, teachers and others have good reason to
support the move, Luedtke said, because Common Core curriculum roll-outs around
the state would make the long-used assessments inaccurate.
"People look
at this and say giving kids a test that they're not being taught the curriculum
for is ridiculous," Luedtke said.
A new Common Core-based assessment will
be used next year. The Maryland State Education Association and the Maryland
Association of Boards of Education agree and are backing the bill. The Maryland
Education Department supports administering the tests - promoting value in
determining school performance.
Luedtke admitted that the state is in a
tough spot because of the requirement to test. But even if legislation doesn't
move quickly enough to force a request for a waiver, the state still could skip
the testing and pay a penalty. His guess is that the penalty would be less than
the cost of testing : $6 million. He sees a benefit in the discussion because
the public has become so engaged in what's going on with
education.
"Common Core implementation and implementation of the new
PARCC Assessments - I think people are very worried about whether or not we're
doing that right," he said.
The No Child Left Behind Act requires yearly
testing for grades three through eight.
The hearing on the bill, HB 117,
will begin at 1 p.m. before the House Ways and Means Committee. Details of the
bill are online at mgaleg.maryland.gov.
The Washington Post has seen fit to
run yet another editorial attacking the Montgomery County Education Association
and its political activism. One must
wonder why the Post, given its stated support of reform efforts in public
education, chooses to single out the local teachers and their union who have
done more than any other in the area to bring such efforts to fruition. MCEA has a long and meaningful history of
partnering with Montgomery County Public Schools to improve teaching and
learning. The Post itself recognized
this when it ran a front page article on (6/29/09) about our Peer Assistance
and Review (PAR) program. PAR is only
one part of the jointly designed and managed Teacher Professional Growth
System, which is a model teacher evaluation system for school systems around
the country and abroad. Maryland’s
schools have been ranked #1 in the nation for five years by Education Week- in
no small part due to the student achievement gains that are the focus, indeed
the commitment, of the educators of MCPS.
The Post alleges that MCEA has sold
its endorsement but offers no evidence to substantiate this claim. We have never traded our support for financial contributions. Never have and never will. Every candidate we recommend is someone we believe will be an advocate for public education. In fact, many of the candidates recommended by MCEA have been recommended by the Post editorial board as well.
The criteria we use are posted on our website. The Post
itself has noted the transparency of our process (which one might note, is markedly more
democratic and open than the process the Post’s editorial board itself
uses). We do not apologize for our
efforts to inform voters about the candidates our members, the people trusted
to care for, challenge, and teach the students of MCPS, believe will best
support them in their work.
In 2006 and to a lesser extent in
2010, we accepted voluntary donations from candidates who recognized that
pooling their resources to publicize their support for public education and
from educators was an effective means of informing the voting public and
seeking its support. The coordinated mailings fully complied with all Maryland campaign
finance laws. No donations were sought
or accepted until well after our recommendation process was completed. All
contributions were reported to the State Board of Elections. There was no quid-pro-quo - candidates did not have to donate a cent to our coordinated campaign.
Some did. Some didn’t. Their choice.
Do we advocate for our members? Of course we do. Do we want them to have the resources they
need to do their best every day for students? No doubt.
Do we want politicians who will work with us to protect our classrooms?
Absolutely. We want high quality teachers, lower class sizes, and increased funding to help close the achievement gap. So do the candidates we recommend.
So why is the Post so vitriolic in its
smear campaign against MCEA? Josh Kurtz, a senior editor at Roll Call,
concluded in 2009 that the Post’s “unbridled ferocity” was an effort “to reassert its power over
Montgomery County elections… by tear(ing) down the institution it sees as its
biggest rival for winning the hearts and minds of county voters”. John Farrell,
a contributing writer at U.S. News & World Report wrote at that time that
the Post’s editorials were “semi-hysterical” and that the paper “owes the
teachers a correction, if not an apology, for recklessly tossing around words
like ‘corrupt’ and ‘shakedown’.”
We believe that voters deserve to have as much information as possible in order to make informed decisions. We will not back down from our advocacy for our schools, any more than we will lessen our efforts in the classroom every day to help all our students be successful.
By Valerie Strauss, January 30 at 4:33 pm "Nearly all of the superintendents of Maryland school districts have signed a statement that criticizes federal and state education officials for forcing them to implement several major reforms, including the Common Core State Standards, on what they say is an unrealistic timetable...." Click here to read the full story.
Vicki Phillips is the Director of Education at the Gates Foundation, and a key decision-maker in the Foundation's education reform agenda; helping to guide the hundreds of millions of dollars the Foundation invests in education reform. Phillips recently posted a commentary on the Common Core that calls for caution before attaching high-stakes to the new standards and evaluation systems. She said:
"The key principle is giving teachers and students time to adjust to new expectations before they face serious consequences for not meeting them"
"Teachers should benefit from the insights that come out of the evaluation systems as soon as they are available, but districts should ensure that there is a baseline and several years of data before using these systems to make personnel decisions"
"...test scores shouldn't be used to make consequential decisions, such as whether students should graduate, until we are sure we understand how to interpret the results".
"...no new schools should be singled out (as needing improvement) based on new assessments until teachers have had a few years to get used to the new ways of working".
It's not often that teachers, parents, and the big ed reform foundations like Gates all agree. Let's hope the Maryland State Department of Education is listening.
Montgomery school board backs bills to skip standardized tests set for spring in Maryland - because the tests no longer align with the new common core curriculum being taught. Read the story in the Washington Post. Congratulations to the Montgomery County Board of Education for this act in support of sanity - and to the many Montgomery County state legislators who are supporting this proposal. Discussions are also underway in Annapolis over the Maryland State Department of Education's plans for a federal ESEA waiver that attempts to mandate high stakes testing through 2017 and beyond. To communicate with your legislators about this issue, you can find their contact information here. Stay informed by signing up for the Maryland State Education Association (MSEA)'s online legislative updates here.
