UPforEd is closing its doors: hopefully the next parent group will be more interested in effective teacher evaluations

UPforEd is shutting down.

I felt that the organization was not adequately interested in improving teacher evaluations. Instead, the UPforEd folks seemed to think that simply giving administrators more control over teachers would fix schools.

The problem is, the administrators have a problem with competence, too, and NOBODY seems to want to address that!

But the administrators come from the ranks of teachers, so it seems to me that we'd be accomplishing two things at once if we instituted effective, completely unbiased evaluations of teachers: we'd improve the teachers, and we'd improve the teachers who become administrators.

See all posts re UPforEd.

Today UPforEd sent out the email below.

Dear Friends and Supporters,

UPforEd has spent the last three years working tirelessly on behalf of our children--building a foundation of trust and commitment in our community. We have organized parent teams to support neighborhood schools, created and aided numerous coalitions focused on improving student outcomes and engaged hundreds of parents in a school system that desperately needs parent participation.

"Four the Kids" - our recently-launched effort to take a seat at the bargaining table - took off! We're proud to see the district leaders and board willing to negotiate a bold new contract, particularly- reforming the outdated teacher evaluation system. Our wildly-successful campaign even garnered positive national media attention and sparked debate beyond SDUSD.

We are proud of our work. We believe that parents along with our teachers and leaders will guide the transformation of San Diego Unified and know that an independent parent group, operating free from special interests and district rhetoric, is a critical component to this transformation.

But we cannot do it alone. Businesses, community members, other organizations and parents must be willing to not just support our mission by reading emails, but by standing bravely alongside us when the opposition is fierce and with real dollars and cents—putting parents on an equal playing field with other influential and well-funded organizations.

It is with much reluctance that we announce the closure of UPforEd.

What was envisioned as a unifying organization based on strengthening public schools and improving student outcomes has been used by others to pit parents against teachers, parents against schools and sometimes even parents against other parents. This tactic ensures that rather than make change, the adults will continue to argue with one another ensuring those in power maintain their stranglehold on the system. And the kids lose…again.

The rhetoric and misinformation campaign used by the unions and other special interests even spread to elected officials, district leadership, and community organizations. Instead of making informed decisions based in fact, people who once supported UPforEd, were moved into turning their back on UPforEd and parents and helped further isolate meaningful engagement.

Just three years ago, we sat at kitchen table, inspired to make change in our district by organizing parents to improve schools. This idea, fueled by idealist visions and perhaps a bit of naivety, grew into an organization that has changed the lives of hundreds of parents and helped promote innovative, transformational conversation in San Diego Unified. But it has failed to do the most important thing: put children over politics. That will take more time, more money and more parents who are fed up.

Thank you all for your support. Thank you for caring about public education and our kids.

It is our sincere hope that someday, another brave soul (or souls) will try again to spark the change, truly engage parents and transform our district.

Sincerely,

The UPforEd Board of Directors

I'm delighted that UPforEd is addressing the issue of teacher evaluations

Teacher Evaluation: The Debate Rages On
UPforEd
Jan. 2013

Two side-by-side editorials questioning how to evaluate teachers, were in the San Diego U-T this weekend: One by UPforEd board member, Bill Ponder and the other by SDUSD Board Trustee, Kevin Beiser.

UPforEd believes that parents know the difference a great teacher can make in their child's school year. This is backed up by loads of data pointing to the teacher as a key ingredient to student success and even the district's own 2020 Vision Plan has an effective teacher in every classroom as a central premise.

While clearly test scores are not the only answer, this does not mean we should not have a comprehensive discussion about recruiting and keeping the best teachers in our classrooms. We congratulate Mr. Ponder and Trustee Beiser for opening the door to this long overdue conversation. Perhaps the solution is somewhere in the middle.

In Bill Ponder's opinion, "teaching and learning must be elevated to a standard that ensures that all students have the same access to great teachers" and that implementing a teacher evaluation system, where a percentage of the teachers' performance is based on their students' achievement, is needed to get there.

On the other side, San Diego Unified Board Trustee, Kevin Beiser says that test scores should not be used when evaluating a teacher, rather the focus should be on what a "broad array of research from around the country and around the world points to as proven best practices in effective teaching. Collaboration, ongoing professional development and low class sizes work."

Read the full opinion-editorials here, and let us know what you think:

Bill Ponder's Op-Ed
Grading teachers: Accountability needed
By Bill Ponder
SDUT
Jan. 12, 2013

Year after year, San Diego’s students are failing to learn and San Diego’s teachers are not being held accountable.

The political issue around No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and waivers was clearly stated in the U-T’s Dec. 27 editorial, “Obama to California: Do better on schools.” The president said, “most teachers are solid or better, but bad teachers – perhaps 10 percent of those now on the job – must go.”

Now what do we do? Can we evaluate teachers – all teachers – to measure their effectiveness in helping all students achieve?

To some extent we already evaluate teachers based on student outcomes through end of semester exams, Advanced Placement exams, International Baccalaureate exams, etc. As well, teachers are evaluated by outside educational organizations such as College Board and IBO International that look at the effectiveness of teacher instruction based on the students’ mastery of a set of defined subject area standards.

When looking at student learning, the conventional wisdom is that an effective teacher is the central factor in student learning. So why are the most influential organizations in this state – the California Teachers Association (CTA) and California Federation of Teachers (CFT) – refusing to commit to evaluate teachers based on the students’ mastery of clearly identified outcomes?

After all, is teaching students to master the state’s educational guidelines not the responsibility of the teachers?

The CTA and CFT claim there is no way to measure the effectiveness of instruction because the individual needs of the students are too diverse. Not true. With computer adaptive assessment (such as the new Smarter Balance Assessment which will soon replace the California Standardized Testing) and peer evaluation models, other states have successfully created a teacher evaluation system where a percentage of the teachers’ performance is based on their students’ achievement.

Currently the National Education Association is discussing implementing “a bar exam” for teachers entering the profession. Are NEA officials now acknowledging that teaching is a profession and that professionals are evaluated based on their ability to perform at the level necessary to be a member of the profession? Finally it is becoming clear that top-level policymakers understand that teachers need to be held accountable for educating all children.

So what should we do, now that the No Child Left Behind waiver has not been granted to California? Do we maintain the status quo or do we demand that school districts do more to educate all children?

I submit that we need to change the paradigm by asking for the same accountability for teacher performance that is expected in any other profession. Further, that we not allow the current system to keep ineffective teachers and administrators in our schools. We hold children as young as five years of age accountable by assessing them, reporting out grades, and deciding whether to promote or retain them based on performance. Yet we have given the CTA and CFT enough power to control, and ultimately defeat, our waiver application.

Why have we not organized as concerned parents and community members to ensure that the bar is raised in the teaching profession? Teaching and learning must be elevated to a standard that ensures that all students have the same access to great teachers and, thus, to learning.

e must demand that school districts in “Program Improvement” – those that have not met adequate yearly progress in student achievement in English and math – implement the federal guidelines under NCLB. Corrective action under the guidelines includes changing staff, implementing more directed interventions for low performing students and providing parents with alternative school choices, to name a few. San Diego Unified is entering year three of “Program Improvement” status with half of its students not proficient in math and English. With or without NCLB, it is our moral imperative to effect change.

We know we need to change. It is not a matter of should we change, it is a matter of how soon can we change. Our children do not have time to wait for teachers to be held accountable. It is our responsibility as parents and citizens to ensure that our students have quality teachers in every classroom in order to create the capacity for our children to compete on the global stage

Teaching and learning must be elevated to a standard that ensures that all students have the same access to great teachers, and thus, to learning.

Ponder, a retired university administrator, was a candidate last year for a seat on the San Diego Unified school board.


Kevin Beiser's Op-Ed

Grading teachers: Scores not reliable
By Kevin Beiser
SDUT
Jan. 12, 2013

[Maura Larkins' note: Actually, scores are very reliable for the top ten per cent of teachers. And heaven knows that the current system is completely useless.]

All children deserve to have effective teachers. As a trustee of the San Diego Unified School District, my job is to cut through the ideological and political debates about what produces effective teaching and to focus on what actually works. My own experience as a classroom teacher confirms what the broad array of research from around the country and around the world points to as proven best practices in effective teaching. Collaboration, ongoing professional development and low class sizes work. Using standardized test scores to evaluate teachers, and threatening or bribing teachers based on such standardized test scores, does not in fact produce effective teaching or improved student learning.

I have the privilege of teaching middle school students at Granger Junior High School in National City, where I work with a wonderful team of colleagues that has produced amazing results over the last several years. The students at Granger overcome the challenges of poverty, disability and language to achieve. Granger is a National Turnaround School to Watch and a National Center for Urban School Transformation Finalist (NCUST).

Research shows, and our experience at Granger proves, that when teachers work together students learn more. Professional learning communities work in collaboration to help improve instructional practices and by using student data as a tool to support students, not punish teachers. Ranking teachers using their student test scores destroys such collaboration and pits teachers against one another as they try to score higher than their colleagues. Students should be able to attend any teacher’s tutoring session after school or on Saturday if they need help or are below grade level.

Finland has a world-renowned public education system as a result of school reforms that have proved to increase student learning. Samuel Abrams, a visiting scholar at Columbia University, documented that Finland reduced class sizes (cap of 16 students in many sciences classes), boosted teacher pay and required all teachers to complete a rigorous master’s program. Finland ended standardized testing, except for seniors in high school going to college. Finnish teachers also have more time to plan lessons and collaborate with colleagues. The teacher evaluation system relies upon a variety of measures – none of which include standardized test scores. We can learn from Finland’s success.

The National Academy of Science clearly refutes using test scores to fire teachers when it concludes “VAM (value-added modeling) estimates of teacher effectiveness should not be used because such estimates are far too unstable to be considered fair or reliable.”

The Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education found that ratings were unstable and unreliable with a margin of error as high as 50 percentile in English and 30 percentile in math. That means a teacher rated as “average” in the 40 percentile could be as high as 90 or low as 0 percentile. 90 is an “effective” teacher and 0 percentile would be and “ineffective” teacher.

Of 500 New York state principals surveyed, 73 percent said the “ineffective” label from test scores assigned to some of their teachers was not accurate and 81 percent felt the tool was limited or of no value in evaluating teachers.

Even the American Institute for Research found that teacher scores decreased as the number of disabled and poor students increased. This factor was “supposed” to be taken into account with the “algorithm” to calculate teacher test scores – clearly it did not. It also admitted that there was no way to identify co-teachers or support teachers and over half of the student scores in grades 4 and 5 were not assigned to a teacher. Mild and severe disabilities were grouped in the same category, disadvantaging special education teachers.

I hope teacher and administrator evaluations are improved to benefit our kids. In many other countries, like Finland and Singapore, teachers are evaluated by trained observers on how teachers support the whole child, how they self-improve and how they collaborate with other educators to improve their practice. As a teacher and as a policymaker, I am interested in these forward-thinking, research-based best practices for improving teaching. I am not interested in anti-teacher strategies that do not work and that are based more in conservative political ideology than in research or practice.

Beiser is vice-president of the San Diego Unified Board of Education and was San Diego Math Teacher of the Year in 2009. [Maura Larkins' note: Teacher of the Year awards are usually won by politically-popular teachers.]

Lisa Berlanga is wrong about what is needed to turn around schools

UPforED will not make anything better as long as it thinks that teachers are the only interest group that is sabotaging education.

The entrenched and corrupted power of school district politicians and administrators is just as big a problem as the teachers' union. For BOTH groups, kids come second to personal agendas. In order to keep power in the hands of powerful administrators, board members and their union official secret pals, school districts and the teachers union cooperate behind closed doors a lot more than most people know.

It's just too tempting for the leaders of both groups to maintain the status quo.

I agree with Lisa Berlanga that the California Teachers Union has stood in the way of meaningful teachers evaluations--but administrators and politicians are equally guilty. Lisa's organization seems to want to let the wolf replace the fox in the henhouse.

UPforED could actually do some good if it got an effective system of teacher evaluation instituted. The evaluation system would not need to put much, if any, emphasis on student test scores. But it's about time we had eyes in the classrooms, simply recording what teachers are doing.

Principals are not doing, and probably can not do, a proper job of evaluating their own teachers. They have to play politics with powerful teachers to make their schools function. Evaluations should be done by people from outside a school, or, better yet, from outside a school district. Perhaps even volunteer parents could do some of the basic information gathering on teacher performance.

Why not work for meaningful teacher evaluations, Lisa?

Is it just too easy to target the teachers union?

School Board Election Key to Turning Around San Diego Schools
Oct 18, 2012
By LISA BERLANGA
Voice of San Diego

On Nov. 7, San Diego Unified School District moves forward with three new or re-elected board members reconfiguring a board of five, beleaguered by governing questionably in the students' best interests.

In the last few years, we've seen more than our share of controversies that United Parents for Education, or UPforEd, believes served the political expediency of adults to the personal disappointment of parents, and the educational letdown of students. Let's consider just a few decisions made by five people, elected by the majority of San Diego Unified voters that leads us to question their motives.

Recently, San Diego Unified decided not to pursue $15 million dollars in funds under Race to the Top. The Obama administration put forward Race to the Top criteria and guidelines, in an effort to improve student outcomes and close the achievement gap. Yet, San Diego Unified chose not to even apply for these funds. A parent has to ask why wouldn't the district pursue another source of funding during such tight budget times?

In another confounding example, the district faced spiraling healthcare expenses in 2010 to the tune of $167 million — the biggest share of cost aside from payroll. The issue came up this year and the unions blocked hearings on proposals from competitors of the California Schools Voluntary Employees Benefits Association without even a public hearing on the matter.

The media brought the issue to light discovering that in 20 years, the district hasn't put the healthcare bid out once despite best practices suggesting soliciting new bids every three to five years.

Because of decisions like these there is not enough money left in the budget to fund teachers. So our teachers, sometimes the best and brightest, get pink-slipped each year.

Yet for all these poor fiduciary decisions, voters continue to elect school board members who maintain the status quo and put what's best for kids' achievement second, placing the full burden on parents and teachers...

Lisa Berlanga response:

Lisa B
posted at 12:10 pm on Fri, Oct 19, 2012

Just for clarification my article was referencing school board members, not the teacher's union. However, I agree with you Maura, let's create a meaningful teacher evaluation system that would provide teachers with ongoing realevant feedback, supports, mentoring and professional development. Let's design a system that actually recognizing exceptional teachers and rewards them in some way. Let's share best practices and what is working amoung all the schools. Let's give the principals the authority to create teams of teachers who work together for years on a population of student's figuring out what works best for them. UPforEd is all for that but we need parents, teachers, administrators, board members and the teacher's union to work together to accomplish this. Anyone who agrees this is a great goal for our district, join us, www.upfored.org.


Maura Larkins response:

Hi Lisa:

It sounds like UPforEd is planning to sit around waiting for "parents, teachers, administrators, board members and the teacher's union to work together" to create a teacher evaluation system.

In the meantime, you're hoping to give administrators more power.

You say, "Let's give the principals the authority..."

If you give principals more authority over teachers BEFORE you have meaningful AND INDEPENDENT teacher evaluations, then you're just supporting the current system of personal agendas and school politics.

That's not exactly the same thing as getting all stakeholders to work together, is it?

You already have about 10% of teachers who have figured out what students need. Successful teaching is not a mystery. The expertise of those teachers should be accessed instead of giving principals more power to reward their (often mediocre) teacher cronies for loyalty.

UPforEd has a huge amount of money--enough to hire you as executive director, which is pretty impressive for a new organization. I suspect that Irwin Jacobs is your major benefactor. If this is true, it should be noted when you publish an opinion piece in VOSD, which is also flourishing due to Jacobs' generosity.

Instead of trying to get rid of the board members who failed to apply for Race to the Top (which means, of course, board members who are supported by the teachers union), why not put your huge amount of cash toward designing a teacher evaluation system, and then campaigning for it?

After you make it inevitable that effective teacher evaluations will be implemented, then the "parents, teachers, administrators, board members and the teacher's union" can finalize the details.

But that's not your goal, is it? You don't want effective, unbiased teacher evaluations. You just want more arbitrary power for administrators.


MORE COMMENTS


Wiz1 posted at 11:35 am on Wed, Oct 24, 2012.

As for Up for Ed, it started in 2011


ScrippsDad posted at 1:25 pm on Wed, Oct 24, 2012.

...UPforED started well before 2011, and again, you ignore the facts and you don't bother to do the research. I'm not sure how you can lay claim to the truth when you weren't there; I was and have been throughout so folks can take what you say as an uniformed outsider...


Maura Larkins posted:

Dear Scripps Dad:

I tried to take your advice about researching the beginnings of UPforEd, but it wasn't easy. I couldn't find this information on the UPforEd website.

I looked through three pages of Google results, and the earliest date I could find connected with UPforEd was Feb. 20, 2011, the date the organization registered its domain name.

I assume that most of the people involved in UPforEd had made efforts to change schools before the organization started--but you can't predate the start of the organization to the time when some members first started making efforts for schools.

In fact, weren't most of the founders of UPforEd once organized under the name San Diegans 4 Greater Schools? And didn't they start UPforEd after SD4 garnered some bad publicity during its failed effort to pack the SDUSD board with unelected members?

Perhaps you intend to say that UPforEd and SD4 are the same organization? Is that how you justify saying that UPforEd started before 2011?

If that's the justification for your statements, then you need to come out and state that UPforEd is simply a new name for an older organization. Otherwise, it will appear that you're trying to fudge the facts.

Until you make that argument, I think Wiz1 is correct when he states that UPforEd started in 2011.



ScrippsDad posted at 4:10 pm on Thu, Oct 25, 2012

Maura - so not true about UPforED being an offshoot or newer iteration of SD4 and I can tell you that straight because I am not or ever was in agreement with SD4 and was not a participant in SD4 and I'm a founding Board member of UP4ED.



Maura Larkins posted at 10:45 am on Tue, Oct 30, 2012

Dear Scripps Dad,
Where did UPforEd get so much money so quickly? Is Irwin Jacobs a major contributor? How about Rod Dammeyer and Buzz Woolley? Were assets transferred to UPforEd from SD4GS?


ScrippsDad posted at 7:54 pm on Tue, Oct 30, 2012

Maura - keep grasping at straws. No, Irwin Jacobs is not a major, or even, minor contributor. No assets (what assets might those be anyway?) were transferred fromSD4GS.

Seems you guys will believe what you want, make up what you want to believe regardless of facts...



Maura Larkins posted

Dear Scripps Dad:

I’ll respond to your statements one at a time.

“Maura - keep grasping at straws.”

Since when is asking questions the same as “grasping at straws”? Well, I suppose it is somewhat similar when the only answers that are forthcoming are as flimsy as stalks of dried grass. For example, what does it mean when you say that something is “not so true”? It sounds that you’re saying that it’s somewhat true. I believe you when you say that you did not support SD4, but why not admit that many SD4 people joined UPforEd when SD4 shut down? Here are just a couple of them:

1. Erica Holloway, spokesperson for SD4, is now spokesperson for UPforEd.
2. David Page, a major figure in SD4 (he would have been one of a small group of people given the responsibility for choosing several board members), is a board member of UPforEd.



“No, Irwin Jacobs is not a major, or even, minor contributor.”

Did you forget to include Rod Dammeyer and Buzz Woolley in this statement? Or am I to conclude that Dammeyer and Woolley are contributors? Now that you mention it, this does feel like grasping at straws. You seem to offer answers, but when I examine them, I see that there’s really not much there.

“No assets (what assets might those be anyway?) were transferred fromSD4GS.”

I suspect you’re being disingenuous when you ask what assets I might be talking about. Surely you read the stories Emily Alpert wrote about the big donors who gave many hundreds of thousands of dollars to SD4, enabling it to hire the La Jolla Group to circulate its petition. www.voiceofsandiego.org/education/article_c0d00cae-7b15-11e0-bfd6-001cc4c03286.html Nevertheless, I’ll take your answer at face value.

“Seems you guys will believe what you want, make up what you want to believe regardless of facts.”

Well, now, Scripps Dad, that is a very personal observation. You have no justification for saying this to me. And by the way, I was surprised when the editor published your insulting comment to Wiz1 when you said that he must be a bad science teacher since he expressed views for which you have contempt. I thought that VOSD had a policy of no ad hominem attacks. I am happy to see that your comment has now been removed. But I wonder, why are you so angry? Do you feel that the privacy of UPforEd is not being respected adequately? What’s wrong with having a calm, civilized discussion about who’s who among those who are spending large amounts of money to affect San Diego schools?