Re: Parents sue over teacher quality

[monicalucido@comcast.net]

"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. "


What an absolute and ignorant JERK this guy is !!

What he really wants are a bunch of drones who have no knowledge of the history of the corporate push to take over public education, so that he can manipulate them to do his bidding. Experienced teachers are not as open to this "concept" of charter schools, because they are an open doorway to poison democracy with the abuses of a profit-based system of education. And he says that credentialed teachers are TAINTED?!?!? When we have a shortage of teachers in general and they are leaving in droves, this guy wants to label teachers as a burr on his rear end? What the hell is going on here? Does anyone else hear me screaming? And more importantly, IS ANYONE ELSE SCREAMING?

Joe
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>
> 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, 
> 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.