Race To The Test

Last week brought news that the U.S. Department of Education had selected Maryland as one of ten finalists in the administration’s Race To The Top (RTTT) grant competition. This caught most observers by surprise. The common wisdom over the last 12 months has been that Maryland had little chance of winning. The machinations between the State Superintendent of Education, the leadership of the General Assembly, the Governor’s Office, and local boards of education have been more focused on trying not to get blamed if and when the state’s application fell short.

Now that Maryland actually will receive $250 million dollars in new federal education aid, it’s long past time for the public to understand what was proposed in the 600+ page Maryland Race To The Top Application.

To start with – fully 50% of the federal aid will never get out the door of the Maryland State Department of Education. The grant proposal – written by MSDE – only provides for 50% of the money to go directly to local school systems. For those taxpayers concerned about bureaucratic bloat in state and federal government – the RTTT grant is a massive increase in MSDE’s budget.

To fulfill the promises made in the Maryland RTTT application, the state government will have to implement a massive expansion of standardized testing in our schools. The State Superintendent’s plan to require that teacher evaluations be formulaically linked to student tests scores will – by necessity – mean new tests in all subjects and in all grade levels. It apparently will also mean a completely new set of assessments at the beginning of each year, in order to provide the baseline data needed to measure student growth in a value-added measurement system.

If you are concerned about the amount of school time spent on testing and on test prep; you ain’t seen nothing yet.

This may hit our youngest students first; as the state expands the required Maryland State Assessments (MSAs) down into second grade, first grade, and kindergarten: testing three to five year old children every year. But it will also mean new standardized tests in all subject areas in middle schools and high schools. And what about those art teachers? One can only imagine how the State Department of Education will develop a standardized, multiple choice test for that one. But in MSDE’s vision, all teachers – including the art teacher – have to have their performance evaluations formulaically linked to standardized tests in order to judge their effectiveness.

Say goodbye to creativity in the classroom. No time for that guest speaker, that field trip to the museum, that National History Day project, that student art show or concert performance, or that wonderful novel that’s not in the state curriculum. The focus in every subject and in every grade will be on memorizing the information that will be on the state multiple choice test.

One of the many ironies here is that not too long ago, Maryland had an earlier state testing system – the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) that actually required a degree of student writing. But it proved to be too expensive, and it took too long to read and score hundreds of thousands of essays and short answers, so Maryland (like most states) decided it was cheaper and quicker to just rely on multiple choice tests that can be graded by machines. And now we’re going to have more of them.

For all the attention that the Race To The Top has received from the media and educational pundits, little notice has been given to the $179 million Maryland received the week before as a result of the federal Education Jobs Bill. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 98% of that money is passed straight through to local schools, and is to be used to “save or create education jobs” at the local school level.

Montgomery County Public Schools will get $19 million from the Education Jobs bill. I’m proud to say that the National Education Association – MCEA’s national affiliate – was one of the prime movers behind passage of this bill. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will prevent the layoff of close to 160,000 classroom teachers nationwide. No new bureaucracies, no new mandated tests and curriculum. Just lower class sizes.

Unless the County Council tries to divert these funds to non-education programs, this money should minimize further cuts in next year’s MCPS budget.

The Montgomery County Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools declined to sign on to Maryland's RTTT application. That was the right thing to do. The teacher evaluation system in Montgomery County has been profiled in numerous national publications. The Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) Program – like those it was modeled on in Toledo and Rochester – is increasingly held up as a model for reform of teacher evaulation systems. Several states have begun to either create incentives for peer evaluation systems or even mandate them.

Montgomery County simply wanted assurance that its locally developed, effective teacher evaluation system not be upended by new state mandates. MSDE refused.

But Montgomery County isn’t the only group questioning the state’s plans. The Frederick County Board of Education also refused to sign on. In fact, leading education researchers across the nation are criticizing the drive to link teacher evaluations to student test scores. The Washington Post’s education blogger – Valerie Strauss – had a recent column about a major new research report that questions the proposed linkage of teacher evaluations to student test scores as statistically inappropriate.

And - significant questions are being raised by the Maryland General Assembly.

Last winter, the General Assembly passed the Education Reform Act of 2010. This was seen as the state legislature’s move to look as if they supported the Race To The Top application, so they wouldn’t be blamed if and when it lost. The Act called for ‘significant portion’ of a teacher’s evaluation to be determined by student growth data. Yet the proposed MSDE regulations go way beyond that, calling for 50% of a teacher’s evaluation to be determined by this data. The General Assembly specifically rejected a proposal to specify that 50% of a teacher's evaluation should be linked to student test scores.

The Education Reform Act charged the State Board of Education to develop "general standards" for performance evaluations which specifically stating that county Boards of Education were charged with establishing the actual evaluation criteria. It's hard to see how MSDE's 50% number can be described as a "general" standard. It sure sounds pretty specific to me.

Whether the new General Assembly will approve the proposed MSDE regulations, and whether they will take further action to ensure that MSDE follows the intent of the 2010 law, are yet to be seen. When – and whether - the Governor will step in to provide his own leadership on education is also a question.

Let’s just hope that some sanity is restored before we turn our schools into even more obsessive testing factories and our students are subjected to even more tests which do not contribute to their learning.

Tom Israel, MCEA Executive Director

Welcome New Educators!

Last week, almost 400 new teachers and other professional educators began work in MCPS. MCEA President Doug Prouty helped welcome them to "New Educator Orientation" last Monday. On Wednesday, scores of new educators came by MCEA's Information Table at the NEO Info Fair: turning in membership cards, signing up for the Sick Leave Bank, and asking questions about member benefits. And on Thursday, they all participated in MCEA's 'Welcome to MCEA' workshop.
     Many thanks to MCEA members Jodi Braz, Lauri Friedman, Deborah Menke, Estelle Moore, Lauren Moskowitz, Veronica Peirson, Mavis Ellis, Andrea Robinson, Phyllis Parks-Robinson, Amy Watkins, and Eboni Walker who led the MCEA workshops.
     Any new educators who have not joined MCEA - and the Sick Leave Bank - are encouraged to do so as soon as possible. Sick Leave Bank benefits are available just four months after joining - provided you join the Bank within 90 days of starting work with MCPS. If you wait to join up, you will face a 12 month waiting period before you can apply for benefits.
     To join MCEA, either 1) talk with the MCEA Building Rep at your school or worsite, 2) contact Jackie Thompson, MCEA's Membership Coordinator, or 3) join online through the NEA website.
     We also encourage all new educators to go to the special New Members page of the MCEA website. There you will find the MCEA Welcome Packet, enrollment forms for MCEA and for the Sick Leave Bank, as well as other useful information as you start your career in MCPS and MCEA.

Tom Israel, MCEA Executive Director

U.S. News & World Report Blogger Responds to Washington Post Attacks on MCEA

Apparently we weren't the only ones appalled by the Washington Post's decision to attack Montgomery County teachers and their right to be involved in local elections.

Unbeknownst to us, a contributing editor at U.S. News and World Report decided the Post's attack was so outrageous that it warranted a response. See John Farrell's blog posting at the link below:

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/john-farrell/2010/02/11/washington-post-gets-hysterical-over-teachers-union-thuggery.html

Thanks John!

Tom Israel
MCEA Executive Director.

Doug Prouty Responds to Washington Post Attack

Last weekend, MCEA President Doug Prouty distributed an email to all MCEA members responding to this morning's nasty editorial in the Washington Post attacking the rights of Montgomery County teachers to be involved in local elections.

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Dear MCEA Members,

Today the editorial board of the Washington Post decided to run a broadside attack on the rights of Montgomery County teachers to be involved in politics (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020404421.html ).

The Post’s editors have a long history of union bashing (see the blog posting: “Is the Washington Post Credible on Labor Issues?” at http://maryland-politics.blogspot.com/2008/05/is-washington-post-credible-on-labor.html ). But we wanted to provide you with more information to understand – and explain to others – just why the Post’s editorial board is so wrong.

1. Their fundamental allegation is their belief that MCEA “…is hiring its own bosses”. The Post ignores the fact that it is the voters who elect the County Council and Board of Education, not us. If Montgomery County voters consistently elect politicians who support public education, it is because Montgomery County is a community that supports public education.

2. The Post’s position contradicts itself. On the one hand, they say that teachers “deserve good salaries and benefits for doing a tough and important job”. But then they attack a “twisted system (that) has fueled skyrocketing payroll costs”. If they submitted that kind of contradictory argument in a debating club, they’d be laughed out of the room.

3. MCEA has one of the most transparent and participatory candidate recommendation processes of any organization in the county or the state. Unlike at the Post, candidates are not endorsed by a small group that meets behind closed doors. Our recommendations are made by the Representative Assembly - a group of hundreds of educators who are elected at each school and office across the county. We are the only organization we know of that publishes a rubric of the criteria we use in making recommendations (http://www.mcea.nea.org/pdf/MCEACandidateRecommendationProcess.pdf). All candidates are interviewed by committees of volunteer rank-and-file members, and fill out questionnaires about their views on critical issues of education policy.

4. MCEA’s coordinated campaign work is not unusual, and certainly not illegal. Despite the Post’s allegations, nobody pays to be on the Apple Ballot. But once the Rep Assembly makes its recommendations, we do all we can to help elect those candidates. In 2006, most of our recommended candidates voluntarily made contributions so we could do additional direct mail and advertising on their behalf. This is no different from county political parties that collect contributions from their candidates to fund the parties’ mailings to voters; or the common ‘district slates’ where state delegates and senators make contributions to a ‘team PAC’ in order to send out joint direct mail.

5. The Post has a misguided view of political corruption. Most candidates collect cash contributions from corporations and other special interests groups. That system looks a lot more like “buying votes” than what MCEA does. If they think politicians are selling their votes, how about looking at government contractors who make campaign contributions and then win favorable government contracts or zoning changes? MCEA’s PAC makes very few cash contributions to candidates.

We challenge the Post to identify a single MCEA recommended candidate who did not earn our support by their advocacy for public education. It simply hasn’t happened.

The Post’s editorial challenges the basic right of teachers to engage in the political process. It is also a long-winded innuendo of improper conduct with absolutely no evidence to back it up.

We make no apologies for working to elect candidates who will be strong advocates for public education. That is the right thing to do not only for our members, but for our students as well. We hope even more members will join in our efforts to do so.

In Solidarity,

Doug Prouty, MCEA President