Re: Parents sue over teacher quality

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Well-off Americans are not responsible for everything that is wrong in 
public education and it is beyond foolish to keep playing the "class" 
card.  Blaming the "US class system" or corporations because districts 
are playing games around the meaning of "highly qualified" teachers 
simply evades the truth that public education more often operates for 
the interests of adults who work in the system rather than the parents 
and children the system is supposed to serve.

Wealthy Americans are not pulling strings to put less qualified 
teachers in schools that serve less well-off children.  One reason this 
happens is that teachers themselves want to be classified as "highly 
qualified" so they can reap the benefits that label confers; another is 
that it is hard to offer increased pay to better teachers in order to 
get them into less advantaged schools.

I have been saying that there would be fewer abuses if parents and 
children had more clout against principals and teachers who can 
otherwise cheat them with impunity.  The lawsuit is a small step 
towards that, but it demonstrates the truth of what I said.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 8:40 pm
Subject: [arn-l] Parents sue over teacher quality



Some comments on the article:  Yes, it's a sign
of the very inequitable US class system that
interns are assigned to low income schools and
called "highly qualified"  Overall, intern
teachers are great people.  Highly motivated, h
eager to do the right thing for poor kids,
etc.  But even the most competent of them are NOT
GOOD TEACHERS until they've been seasoned for
several years (those who stay in the
profession).  They are at best student teachers
who've been put in charge of their own
classrooms.  I taught for 7 years in what I think
was the best interns program in California, and
even our most talented interns were not ready to
teach competently.  Many of our grads eventually
developed into excellent teachers, and are still
doing great things in urban education, because we
prepared them very well for 2 years; but during
their first 2-4 years they were NOT READY to
teach alone, and it was not fair to their students.


As a school district teacher recruiter, I got to
look closely at various other intern programs,
because I was a "consumer" of their
products.  Almost all did a horrible job of
preparing their students on all counts: cultural
and linguistic factors, child development,
classroom management, pedagogy and curriculum,
you name it.  As a professional developer, I
spent countless hours holding interns' hands and
guiding them through the basics of managing 20-30
children.  Rarely got to discuss the art of teaching with any of them!


Interns are apprentices, student teachers, not
teachers.  They should be hired as part-time or
full-time paraeducators for 2 years while they
study in a credential program, and they should be
assigned to work with truly competent mentor
teachers.  Pay them a decent salary with fringe
benefits so they can survive the apprenticeship
period.  But of course there's no money for that, not for poor kids.


Embedded in the defense of intern programs in
this article is the corporate propaganda
argument: "Anybody who knows the subject matter
can teach.  We don't need no stinkin' methods
courses!  Pedagogy?  Bah, humbug!"  Teacher
bashing and deskilling of the teaching
profession.  They want teachers to be compliant
drones who deliver their scripted, behaviorist curricula.


Two factual corrections:        Walnut Creek is
an upper middle class suburban community, so the
fact that a Montessori school with several
interns scores high                                 on tests doesn't 
mean much.


                               Another, low
income school used as an example of high scores
with mostly interns is a bogus example.  Numerous
sources (                                parents,
relatives, students, local teachers) have told me
in confidence that the school routinely (and
illegally) turns away
eligible                          applicants
because they have low test scores.  I visited
their classrooms this year and saw boring,
ineffective teaching by
both                                interns and
"regular" teachers.  They get extra funding from
conservative foundations, and they use it for
enrichments of all
kinds.                            Whatever causes
their higher than average scores, it's not the teaching.


Oh, and the superintendent who says that veteran
teachers don't necessarily make a
difference....I'd be cautious about his
evaluation of good teaching.  A nice guy, but he
has only 2 years of teaching experience.  His
judgement of teachers was always impressionistic
and heavily influenced by bells and whistles, not by student learning.


Pete Farruggio



Printed in the Oakland Tribune....


Parents sue over teacher quality

Suit claims new instructors counted as highly qualified

By Shirley Dang, STAFF WRITER


http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_6686930

08/22/2007

Parents and students from the Hayward, Los
Angeles and West Contra Costa school districts
filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the U.S.
Department of Education alleging that the
department broke with laws meant to ensure a
quality teacher in each classroom.


When Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act
in 2001, lawmakers specified that teachers needed
to be credentialed and teach in a subject where
they received proper training in order to be
considered "highly qualified." Districts must
notify parents each fall iftheir child's teacher
fails to meet those requirements.


However the department allows states to count
teacher interns as credentialed even though they
are still in the process of earning certification.


Maribel Heredia, a parent of two Hayward students
who is suing the department, said during a press
conference that her son's first-grade teacher is
an intern who leaves twice a week to finish up
college classes ­ leaving her son Jose Aldana with a substitute twice a 
week.


"I feel that this is wrong to call this teacher
highly qualified," Heredia said. "I feel like I'm being lied to."


Troy Flint, a spokesman for the Oakland school
district, said it is short-sighted to assume interns are unqualified.


"Often, they have better qualifications in terms
of their familiarity with the subject matter," he
said, noting that many have bachelor's degrees in
the subjects they are assigned to teach.


Flint also noted that it is already difficult to
recruit people with math and science backgrounds
into teaching. If people had to take two years
off to complete a credentialing program, they'd
be even less likely to change careers, he argued.


"It's how you pull people in from other walks of life," he said.


An official with the U.S. Department of Education
declined to respond to the lawsuit.


"Consistent with the department's practice, we
are not able to comment on a complaint that has
not been served but we will of course review it
closely when we do receive it," said Samara
Yudof, U.S. Department of Education spokeswoman.


Heredia, three Richmond High School students and
two social justice organizations were among those
who filed the lawsuit at the U.S. District Court
in San Francisco. The complaint argues that the
department overstepped its authority when it
created the regulation allowing
teachers-in-training to count as highly qualified.


Last school year, more than 10,700 interns worked
in California schools as teachers with
provisional credentials, according to the state Department of 
Education.


Lawyers at the San Francisco civil rights firm
Public Advocates who helped file the lawsuit say
that the loophole allows districts and the state
to mask the shortage of trained teachers,
particularly at campuses with many poor students of color.


"If successful, this suit will prohibit states
and districts from continuing the all too
frequent practice of concentrating interns at
low-income and high-minority schools," said John
Affeldt, managing attorney of Public Advocates.


At Richmond High, one in 10 teachers worked as
interns last school year, according to state data.


Three incoming juniors ­ Jazmine Johnson, Adriana
Ramirez and one unnamed student ­ are suing.


As a freshman, Johnson took English, Spanish and
geography from interns, according to the
complaint. Ramirez had interns for English and Spanish as a sophomore.


"It's not fair to the students," said Jessica
Price, a former teaching intern at Richmond High
who recently earned her credential and will begin
her second year there this fall. "Half their
teachers are just getting their bearing down.
That's going to affect their education."


Interns still need guidance and time to learn the
art of teaching, which did not happen in her
case, she said. Days after graduating from UC
Santa Barbara, she found herself teaching summer school in Watts.


"With just five days of training, we were already
put in the classroom," Price said.


Last fall, Price arrived at Richmond High as an
intern, one of nine on staff, she said. She has
since earned her credential, but still feels green.


"Last year when I walked through the door, no way
was I highly qualified," Price said.


Some schools rely heavily on interns. In
Pittsburg, nearly a quarter of the teachers at
Central Middle School were interns last year. At
Edna Brewer Middle School in Oakland, more than a
third of the staff were interns from universities
or colleges. In Oakland, interns make up 10 percent of teachers.


Recent University of Oregon graduate Chelsea
Byers started her first year at the Melrose
Leadership Academy in Oakland last year after six
weeks of training with Teach for America program.


"Even with one year of experience today, I would
still not call myself highly qualified," Byers said.


However interns do not necessarily lower the
quality of education at every school.


"You can't equate having a lot of veteran
teachers with the achievement of students," said
Gary McHenry, superintendent of the Mt. Diablo
school district. "Sometimes you have a younger
staff and they get amazing results."


At Eagle Peak Montessori elementary school in
Walnut Creek, six out of 10 teachers held
certificates in 2006-07. Two worked as interns
and another two taught on emergency credentials.
The average years of experience is 2.4 years.


However, the charter school earned some of the
best achievement scores of all elementary schools
in the Mt. Diablo school district. Similarly, the
Oakland Charter Academy posted some of the
highest test scores among middle schools in the
Oakland school district last school year even
though five out of six teachers were interns, according to state data.


Academy Director Jorge Lopez said he finds it
easier to work with younger, less experienced
teachers because they are more open to the concept of charter schools.


"I always go after teachers without credentials
because they're not tainted," Lopez said.


But new teachers still need guidance, said Jane
West, a vice president at the American
Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
Intern programs fill a vital role in preparing the next wave of 
teachers.


However those programs have changed from a
training ground into a standard way of filling
the holes left by retirees and those leaving the industry.


"There's a real price to be paid for that," West said.


Staff writers Eric Louie, Katy Murphy, Kristofer
Noceda and Kimberly S. Wetzel contributed to this
story. Shirley Dang covers education. Reach her
at 925-977-8418 or
<mailto:sdang@bayareanewsgroup.com>sdang@bayareanewsgroup.com.

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