Obama: Education data justify jobs plan
Associated Press
August 18, 2012
Tight school budgets have meant fewer teachers, larger classes and shorter school years, according to a White House report that President Obama says shows the need for Congress to pass his proposals to help states reduce teacher layoffs.
The study concluded that 300,000 education jobs have been lost since the official end of the recession in 2009 and that student-to-teacher ratios have increased by 4.6 percent from 2008 to 2010 and are on track to grow more.
"If we want America to lead in the 21st century, nothing is more important than giving everyone the best education possible - from the day they start preschool to the day they start their career," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday.
For Obama, the report offered a fresh chance to push a nearly year-old jobs plan he proposed that provided money for states to keep teachers, police officers and firefighters on the job. The proposal included payroll tax cuts and jobless insurance provisions that Congress has passed. But other proposals in the plan have run aground amid mostly Republican opposition.
Obama is pressing Congress to act, part of an election-year strategy to portray Republicans as obstructionists. Republicans have proposed their own measures, but they have not advanced in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
While the private sector has continued to create jobs, though at a sluggish pace, the public sector has been posting monthly job losses, contributing to an 8.3 percent unemployment rate.
Obama's plan includes $25 billion in aid to prevent layoffs of teachers and pay for other education jobs. It is part of a broader effort to retain state and local government jobs...
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/Obama-Education-data-justify-jobs-plan-3798736.php#ixzz240zuqFFt
Showing posts with label teacher lay-offs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teacher lay-offs. Show all posts
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Chatter: Teacher Hiring, Firing and Layoffs
Please click on title to go to original article with lots of links:
Chatter: Teacher Hiring, Firing and Layoffs
June 17, 2011
Morgan Stinson
Here's a quick roundup expanding on some recent tweets of voiceofshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifandiego.org education reporter Emily Alpert:
• Principals in the L.A. Unified School District should be allowed to hire any teacher of their choice, says a report by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). Displaced tenured teachers who aren't rehired elsewhere shhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifould be permanently dismissed, it says, and principals should have be allowed to hire any qualified applicant, including teachers from outside the school system.
[See Maura Larkins post on this.]
The recommendations would cut guaranteed jobs for "must-place teachers," which are those fired for poor performance, conflict with an administrator, declining enrollment, or budget cuts.
[Maura Larkins' comment: We seem to have a mix-up in this sentence. Obviously, fired teachers would not appear on a "must place list." The writer probably meant to say that these teachers were pushed out of their schools for these reasons, and are looking for new schools.]
"Three-quarters of principals surveyed also said that teachers on the must-place list are rarely if ever a good fit for their school," the report says.
• "Seniority based layoffs hurt good teachers," according to another report, this one from Education Trust-West.
"The harm of a single layoff can be multiplied, as a cascading process of 'bumping' begins. The system is quite insane," a one of the report's authors told the New York Times in March. Bumping is when a junior school employee's job is given to someone who has seniority. Once a teacher receives tenure, they are able to bump junior teachers from their classrooms.
Last year at a discussion of "Waiting for Superman," a film about teaching and education in the United States, Bill Freeman told the audience teacher tenure, a toxic topic, doesn't exist. To those who use the term, however, teacher tenure is when "permanent teachers get warnings and time to improve before being fired, can take their case to a panel and appeal it higher if they disagree with a ruling."
• This year schools sent out thousands of layoff notices to employees but the layoffs weren't based on the effectiveness of school employees or the needs of school communities — the primary factor was lack of seniority, which can leave poor schools, where junior teachers tend to work, understaffed.
A proposed solution is California State Bill 1285, Protect Our Schools from Devastating Layoffs. The bill gives school districts tools to manage budget-based layoffs, to help ensure struggling schools don't take the brunt of cuts that leave children without teachers. It does not change teachers' right to collective bargaining.
Morgan Stinson is a junior at High Tech High and an intern at voiceofsandiego.org. She can be reached at vosdinterns@gmail.com
Chatter: Teacher Hiring, Firing and Layoffs
June 17, 2011
Morgan Stinson
Here's a quick roundup expanding on some recent tweets of voiceofshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifandiego.org education reporter Emily Alpert:
• Principals in the L.A. Unified School District should be allowed to hire any teacher of their choice, says a report by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). Displaced tenured teachers who aren't rehired elsewhere shhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifould be permanently dismissed, it says, and principals should have be allowed to hire any qualified applicant, including teachers from outside the school system.
[See Maura Larkins post on this.]
The recommendations would cut guaranteed jobs for "must-place teachers," which are those fired for poor performance, conflict with an administrator, declining enrollment, or budget cuts.
[Maura Larkins' comment: We seem to have a mix-up in this sentence. Obviously, fired teachers would not appear on a "must place list." The writer probably meant to say that these teachers were pushed out of their schools for these reasons, and are looking for new schools.]
"Three-quarters of principals surveyed also said that teachers on the must-place list are rarely if ever a good fit for their school," the report says.
• "Seniority based layoffs hurt good teachers," according to another report, this one from Education Trust-West.
"The harm of a single layoff can be multiplied, as a cascading process of 'bumping' begins. The system is quite insane," a one of the report's authors told the New York Times in March. Bumping is when a junior school employee's job is given to someone who has seniority. Once a teacher receives tenure, they are able to bump junior teachers from their classrooms.
Last year at a discussion of "Waiting for Superman," a film about teaching and education in the United States, Bill Freeman told the audience teacher tenure, a toxic topic, doesn't exist. To those who use the term, however, teacher tenure is when "permanent teachers get warnings and time to improve before being fired, can take their case to a panel and appeal it higher if they disagree with a ruling."
• This year schools sent out thousands of layoff notices to employees but the layoffs weren't based on the effectiveness of school employees or the needs of school communities — the primary factor was lack of seniority, which can leave poor schools, where junior teachers tend to work, understaffed.
A proposed solution is California State Bill 1285, Protect Our Schools from Devastating Layoffs. The bill gives school districts tools to manage budget-based layoffs, to help ensure struggling schools don't take the brunt of cuts that leave children without teachers. It does not change teachers' right to collective bargaining.
Morgan Stinson is a junior at High Tech High and an intern at voiceofsandiego.org. She can be reached at vosdinterns@gmail.com
Saturday, April 30, 2011
San Diego teachers union: we won't improve education if you consider teacher layoffs
The SDEA thinks it can win by stopping efforts at improving teaching. I honestly don't know who's worse, the administration or the union. They both care more about the personal careers of the people in power in their various organizations than they do about kids.
School Reform Rooted in Working Together Grows Apart
April 27, 2011
by Emily Alpert
Last summer after San Diego Unified was criticized for turning away from federal school reforms, accused of being too close to its teachers union to seek change, the school board touted a new reform plan, rooted in collaboration with its teachers.
The school district dubbed it "community-based school reform," a very different way to fix schools than the national reform zeitgeist of evaluating or paying teachers based on test scores. Teachers would work together and share data on how kids were doing. Parents would get more involved. Everybody tied to schools would band together to come up with reform ideas of their own.
The teachers union chimed in, saying it would go to work for the reform push. The school board struck an agreement with the union and a nonprofit to test the plans at a scattering of pilot schools starting in March. The idea: model the simple process of getting people together to improve their schools, while putting the muscle of trained organizers behind it.
Now, with the district warning of teacher layoffs, the teachers union has cut off its every-other-week talks on reform with Superintendent Bill Kowba and other leaders. The budget crunch has pitted board members who have long been seen as labor allies — even derided as union puppets — against the same union that once championed them.
While many reforms are still going, the breakup between San Diego Unified and the teachers union has slowed their plans and stopped them from actually joining forces to improve schools, one of the most intriguing parts of the plan. The split has only exacerbated confusion over what, exactly, community reform means.
Some schools tapped as possible pilots are now unsure what will happen. Pacific Beach Middle School is one of them. Teachers there met earlier this year to talk about their vision for the school. Labor leaders met with Principal Julie Martel. More meetings were planned. Then came the pink slips last month.
"It came to a halt," Martel said. "It seems like it's been put on hold."
The question now is what reform will look like if the school district and the union each go it alone. Many of the efforts are still chugging along: The Equality Alliance, the nonprofit that is helping to bring parents together as part of the reform push, just wrapped up a parent survey.
San Diego Unified has tried to foster more community involvement through getting parents involved in "clusters," the schools that lead into each high school. And union leaders just met with parents and employees at Mira Mesa High School this week to talk about whether it could become a pilot school.
At Mira Mesa High, Principal Scott Giusti is excited about dreaming up new ideas with teachers, parents and anyone else with a stake in the school. But he worries about rallying teachers and parents behind a plan while the teachers union isn't talking to San Diego Unified about it. What happens, Giusti asked, if they come up with a plan and the school district doesn't like it? Or what if the union balks?
"I'm a little cautious because everybody isn't at the table," Giusti said.
Leaders on both sides say they won't let the freeze stop them from working on school reform, each in their own way. "The work can still be done without the district stepping up to the plate," said Craig Leedham, executive director of the union. "I think we'll actually accomplish more."
School board member Scott Barnett echoed their words on the other side. "The teachers union reform plan is in addition to what the San Diego Unified board is doing," he said. "Ours is going ahead."
The teachers union argues the district broke its trust by opting to warn more than 1,300 teachers of [possible] layoffs. San Diego Unified, with an estimated deficit of $114 million or more, says it had no choice. Labor leaders argue it could have used other money to spare teachers...
School Reform Rooted in Working Together Grows Apart
April 27, 2011
by Emily Alpert
Last summer after San Diego Unified was criticized for turning away from federal school reforms, accused of being too close to its teachers union to seek change, the school board touted a new reform plan, rooted in collaboration with its teachers.
The school district dubbed it "community-based school reform," a very different way to fix schools than the national reform zeitgeist of evaluating or paying teachers based on test scores. Teachers would work together and share data on how kids were doing. Parents would get more involved. Everybody tied to schools would band together to come up with reform ideas of their own.
The teachers union chimed in, saying it would go to work for the reform push. The school board struck an agreement with the union and a nonprofit to test the plans at a scattering of pilot schools starting in March. The idea: model the simple process of getting people together to improve their schools, while putting the muscle of trained organizers behind it.
Now, with the district warning of teacher layoffs, the teachers union has cut off its every-other-week talks on reform with Superintendent Bill Kowba and other leaders. The budget crunch has pitted board members who have long been seen as labor allies — even derided as union puppets — against the same union that once championed them.
While many reforms are still going, the breakup between San Diego Unified and the teachers union has slowed their plans and stopped them from actually joining forces to improve schools, one of the most intriguing parts of the plan. The split has only exacerbated confusion over what, exactly, community reform means.
Some schools tapped as possible pilots are now unsure what will happen. Pacific Beach Middle School is one of them. Teachers there met earlier this year to talk about their vision for the school. Labor leaders met with Principal Julie Martel. More meetings were planned. Then came the pink slips last month.
"It came to a halt," Martel said. "It seems like it's been put on hold."
The question now is what reform will look like if the school district and the union each go it alone. Many of the efforts are still chugging along: The Equality Alliance, the nonprofit that is helping to bring parents together as part of the reform push, just wrapped up a parent survey.
San Diego Unified has tried to foster more community involvement through getting parents involved in "clusters," the schools that lead into each high school. And union leaders just met with parents and employees at Mira Mesa High School this week to talk about whether it could become a pilot school.
At Mira Mesa High, Principal Scott Giusti is excited about dreaming up new ideas with teachers, parents and anyone else with a stake in the school. But he worries about rallying teachers and parents behind a plan while the teachers union isn't talking to San Diego Unified about it. What happens, Giusti asked, if they come up with a plan and the school district doesn't like it? Or what if the union balks?
"I'm a little cautious because everybody isn't at the table," Giusti said.
Leaders on both sides say they won't let the freeze stop them from working on school reform, each in their own way. "The work can still be done without the district stepping up to the plate," said Craig Leedham, executive director of the union. "I think we'll actually accomplish more."
School board member Scott Barnett echoed their words on the other side. "The teachers union reform plan is in addition to what the San Diego Unified board is doing," he said. "Ours is going ahead."
The teachers union argues the district broke its trust by opting to warn more than 1,300 teachers of [possible] layoffs. San Diego Unified, with an estimated deficit of $114 million or more, says it had no choice. Labor leaders argue it could have used other money to spare teachers...
Sunday, March 13, 2011
In my 24 years of education, I have never seen a teacher released due to their ineffectiveness
South Bay Principal Open to Salary Cuts
A principal at a high school in Otay Mesa says he and others are willing to take pay cuts to save the jobs of four instructors, the U-T says. If the instructors are laid off, the average class size at Montgomery High will grow from 31 to 34 students.
"In my 24 years of education, I have never seen a teacher released due to their ineffectiveness," the principal said, touching on the continuing debate over how difficult it is to get rid of bad teachers. "To lose some of the people who work the most or are effective, that's just not right."
--from Voice of San Diego Morning Report by Randy Dotinga
South County principal calls for salary cuts to save teachers
By Ashly McGlone
San Diego Union-Tribune
February 22, 2011
OTAY MESA — Montgomery High School Principal Lee Romero sees the $24 million deficit the Sweetwater Union High School District is trying to close in its $320 million budget through layoffs and wonders if there isn’t a better solution.
Such as salary cuts.
Romero said he and his wife, who is a teacher, along with others would be willing to take a pay cut if it meant saving the four instructors slated to be laid off at his school if class sizes grow from 31 to 34 students, as proposed by the district.
“At what point do we do the right thing and take the cuts away from the classroom, because it is going to hurt our kids? Nobody including the district, including the unions, are talking about taking a pay cut,” Romero said. “If we go this route (by increasing class sizes), it is going to be bad for everybody.”...
Among the teachers Romero expects to lose under seniority rules that come into effect during layoffs is special education teacher Juan Carrillo and county Teacher of the Year nominee Rhea Walker. They have been teaching for four years and 11 years, respectively.
According to Romero, those who could lose their jobs have contributed to his campus seeing an 85-point increase on the state’s performance index.
“To have more students in a classroom means more special ed students in a classroom, and it almost seems impossible,” Carrillo said.
Romero said no one should be laid off.
“In my 24 years of education, I have never seen a teacher released due to their ineffectiveness,” Romero said. “To lose some of the people who work the most or are effective, that’s just not right.”
Walker can see both sides of the tenure system.
“Time and again you have proven your worth, but the bottom line is still the dollars,” Walker said. “You are thankful and grateful to have something there to guarantee you have a job, but at the same time it’s a double-edged sword.”
Romero said pay cuts need to be addressed.
“There’s 10 percent unemployment in California and people are taking cuts, but we have not,” he said.
About 110 pink slips were issued last year; all but six Spanish teachers were called back to work. Administrators are taking four furloughs this year...
The district cut $11 million from this year’s budget to help close a more than $23 million deficit. The shortfall was covered with stimulus funds and previously restricted money that the state freed up for use in other areas.
A principal at a high school in Otay Mesa says he and others are willing to take pay cuts to save the jobs of four instructors, the U-T says. If the instructors are laid off, the average class size at Montgomery High will grow from 31 to 34 students.
"In my 24 years of education, I have never seen a teacher released due to their ineffectiveness," the principal said, touching on the continuing debate over how difficult it is to get rid of bad teachers. "To lose some of the people who work the most or are effective, that's just not right."
--from Voice of San Diego Morning Report by Randy Dotinga
South County principal calls for salary cuts to save teachers
By Ashly McGlone
San Diego Union-Tribune
February 22, 2011
OTAY MESA — Montgomery High School Principal Lee Romero sees the $24 million deficit the Sweetwater Union High School District is trying to close in its $320 million budget through layoffs and wonders if there isn’t a better solution.
Such as salary cuts.
Romero said he and his wife, who is a teacher, along with others would be willing to take a pay cut if it meant saving the four instructors slated to be laid off at his school if class sizes grow from 31 to 34 students, as proposed by the district.
“At what point do we do the right thing and take the cuts away from the classroom, because it is going to hurt our kids? Nobody including the district, including the unions, are talking about taking a pay cut,” Romero said. “If we go this route (by increasing class sizes), it is going to be bad for everybody.”...
Among the teachers Romero expects to lose under seniority rules that come into effect during layoffs is special education teacher Juan Carrillo and county Teacher of the Year nominee Rhea Walker. They have been teaching for four years and 11 years, respectively.
According to Romero, those who could lose their jobs have contributed to his campus seeing an 85-point increase on the state’s performance index.
“To have more students in a classroom means more special ed students in a classroom, and it almost seems impossible,” Carrillo said.
Romero said no one should be laid off.
“In my 24 years of education, I have never seen a teacher released due to their ineffectiveness,” Romero said. “To lose some of the people who work the most or are effective, that’s just not right.”
Walker can see both sides of the tenure system.
“Time and again you have proven your worth, but the bottom line is still the dollars,” Walker said. “You are thankful and grateful to have something there to guarantee you have a job, but at the same time it’s a double-edged sword.”
Romero said pay cuts need to be addressed.
“There’s 10 percent unemployment in California and people are taking cuts, but we have not,” he said.
About 110 pink slips were issued last year; all but six Spanish teachers were called back to work. Administrators are taking four furloughs this year...
The district cut $11 million from this year’s budget to help close a more than $23 million deficit. The shortfall was covered with stimulus funds and previously restricted money that the state freed up for use in other areas.
Possible Layoffs Would Hit Schools With Poor Students Hardest
Possible Layoffs Would Hit Schools With Poor Students Hardest
March 9, 2011
by Emily Alpert
Seventeen schools in San Diego Unified would lose more than one-fourth of their teaching staff if the school board votes for layoffs this week, according to a memo from its deputy superintendent. The hardest hit school would be Baker Elementary, which would lose 44 percent of its educators.
Under state law, the newest teachers are generally the first to lose their jobs. It's commonly known as "last hired, first fired." That means schools with lots of new teachers get hit harder when layoffs strike, as we recently explained with NBC San Diego. Most of the hardest hit schools have high percentages of disadvantaged kids.
To put these numbers in perspective, the average San Diego Unified elementary school has 64 percent of students eligible for free or reduced price lunches; middle schools average 60 percent eligible.
The new numbers back up an old worry: That layoffs have a disproportionate impact on the neediest schools. The biggest school district in the state, Los Angeles Unified, recently struck a legal settlement with the Public Counsel Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California to protect disadvantaged schools from teacher layoffs.
That means more senior teachers in other schools will end up losing their jobs instead. Los Angeles fought the settlement. Unions have generally argued that seniority is the fairest way to make the painful choice of which teachers should lose their jobs.
The same issue exists in San Diego Unified, but so far, there is no public plan to address it. The lawsuit in Los Angeles sets a legal precedent that someone could use to press the same case in San Diego, but the ruling only applies to Los Angeles. While state law says schools must pay attention to seniority when they lay off teachers, there is some wiggle room in the law to include other factors.
For instance, school districts can skip over employees in scarce or highly needed positions, sparing them from layoffs. San Diego Unified currently plans to skip employees in a few selected science and special education positions, such as physics teachers or educators who work with severely disabled students. I'm waiting for a call back to find out if there is any plan to spare struggling schools.
Friday, July 16, 2010
LBUSD Process For Firing Teachers Stands Up In Court
Long Beach USD achieved a small victory for using criteria beyond seniority to fire teachers.
LBUSD Process For Firing Teachers Stands Up In Court
by Ryan ZumMallen
Long Beach News
07.08.10
After seven days of hearings, a judge ruled today in favor of the Long Beach Unified School District and denied the Teachers Association of Long Beach's assertion that the district did not follow rules while laying off employees.
The local Board of Education is going through its final list of layoffs on July 12.
The judge agreed that the district was within its rights to determine layoffs through its seniority system, its exemption of teachers with training in college readiness programs from the seniority system,
LBUSD Process For Firing Teachers Stands Up In Court
by Ryan ZumMallen
Long Beach News
07.08.10
After seven days of hearings, a judge ruled today in favor of the Long Beach Unified School District and denied the Teachers Association of Long Beach's assertion that the district did not follow rules while laying off employees.
The local Board of Education is going through its final list of layoffs on July 12.
The judge agreed that the district was within its rights to determine layoffs through its seniority system, its exemption of teachers with training in college readiness programs from the seniority system,
Monday, May 17, 2010
Judge to LAUSD: No Layoffs at Gompers, Liechty and Markam This Year
This is terrific news for those of us who are concerned that poor teachers remain ensconced in school while good teachers are laid off.
Judge to LAUSD: No Layoffs at Gompers, Liechty and Markam This Year
May 12, 2010
School Districts Have Flexibility in Making Layoffs in Order to Provide Equal Education to All, Ruling Says
Saying that the state’s education code allows school districts flexibility in laying off teachers in order to comply with constitutional requirements to provide equal education to all students, a Superior Court judge granted an injunction today that prevents the Los Angeles Unified School District from laying off teachers at Gompers, Liechty and Markham middle schools this year. The three schools, which primarily serve low-income students and students of color, saw their teaching corps disproportionately decimated by a round of budget-driven layoffs last year, causing their education efforts to fall below the state constitutional guarantee that all students will receive a basic education consistent with prevailing statewide standards.
“Today's landmark decision carries on the ideals of Brown v. Board of Education that no child may be deprived of the right to learn,” said Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel for the ACLU of Southern California.
Judge to LAUSD: No Layoffs at Gompers, Liechty and Markam This Year
May 12, 2010
School Districts Have Flexibility in Making Layoffs in Order to Provide Equal Education to All, Ruling Says
Saying that the state’s education code allows school districts flexibility in laying off teachers in order to comply with constitutional requirements to provide equal education to all students, a Superior Court judge granted an injunction today that prevents the Los Angeles Unified School District from laying off teachers at Gompers, Liechty and Markham middle schools this year. The three schools, which primarily serve low-income students and students of color, saw their teaching corps disproportionately decimated by a round of budget-driven layoffs last year, causing their education efforts to fall below the state constitutional guarantee that all students will receive a basic education consistent with prevailing statewide standards.
“Today's landmark decision carries on the ideals of Brown v. Board of Education that no child may be deprived of the right to learn,” said Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel for the ACLU of Southern California.
Monday, October 12, 2009
John de Beck tells it like it is: SDUSD board screwed up by keeping surplus teachers and raising class size
The funding problem with schools
By John de Beck
SDNN
...Last year the board decided not to lay off teachers, and about 185 remained on the payroll, despite the fact they did not have teaching stations or children. (I will use the term, “surplus teachers” to identify these people.)
In addition the district used savings that increasing class size would provide (reducing the number of teachers needed), to balance our “tentative” 2009-10 budget.
So we had two conflicting problems and solutions. One was (to realize any savings) that any remaining surplus teachers would have to be placed in already budgeted positions (some of which were cut to save money this year) and the board decided to offer these teachers jobs and training in special education so they could fit into jobs that were budgeted, needed, and unfilled. Others were going to be used for substitutes, and other unfilled jobs that would come from special funded projects. The second was that we would have other unassigned teachers caused by the class size increase.
The board seemed to forget (or was not told) that the problem was that increasing class sizes would add to the need to find places for people and that the class size savings we used to balance our budget were on paper, and not real unless all surplus teachers got assignments that were already in the budget.
Principals were told to implement class size increases for this year and when enrollments showed a decline (or were flat) in September at Ocean Beach, Normal Heights and other schools, they just followed directions and reduced staff according to contract and district rules. The result was that they have had to let teachers go into the pool of surplus teachers (increasing the total) and had to use the remaining staff according to the staffing formulas they were given. They had no choice but to reorganize their schools and that caused them to use techniques like combination classes, to meet their official staffing ratios....
Maura Larkins comment:
It’s a wonder the great Terry Grier didn’t point this out to the board. Or maybe he did, but either way, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this plan wouldn’t work. The board calculated that it had to keep the surplus teachers to please the teachers union (Democrats), and to raise class size so it would appear that it was dealing with the budget crisis (Republicans). The board seems to care only about pleasing the politically powerful, and is so lacking in courage that it wouldn’t fess up about what it had done before school started, when the current debacle could easily have been prevented. Why can’t we elect board members with the courage to put kids first?
Friday, June 26, 2009
Student video asks why can't schools find a fair way to fairly evaluate teachers
How come bad teachers get to keep their jobs just because they've been around a long time, while bright, hardworking young teachers are laid off?
One reason is that there is currently no meaningful system to evaluate teachers.
Student's video puts school cuts on personal level
Los Angeles Times
Steve Lopez
June 26, 2009
David Vera took up an L.A. school board member's challenge, using images to portray the harm caused by slashed budgets. Education advocates hope his work gets a wide audience.
David Vera, 18, has his young heart set on becoming a film editor or an actor. So the challenge posted on the door of his film arts class at Monroe High School in the San Fernando Valley held obvious appeal.
...The challenge had come from Los Angeles Unified School Board member Tamar Galatzan...
His favorite teacher got a pink slip.
That would be Travis Aranaga, an ambitious young teacher in his third year and loving every minute of his job. Aranaga's parents were both teachers, and he always knew he wanted to follow them into the profession. He went and got two masters degrees and threw himself into the job at Monroe.
But none of that mattered. The school district based its job cuts on seniority alone, and Aranaga's neck was under the budget ax...
"That's a special student," said Barbara Avery, telling me Vera was a delight to have in class, and his French wasn't bad, either. "Every once in a while, you get a kid like that."
Avery agreed. "It's just horrible," she said. "Absolutely horrible."
There has to be a way for teachers, administrators, parents and students to fairly evaluate teachers, Avery said, so that when layoffs are necessary, experience is not the only consideration.
She expects to get some heat for advocating that sort of reform. She's Monroe's co-chapter chair of United Teachers Los Angeles, and the union has staunchly defended basing layoffs on seniority, not evaluations.
I should note that Avery and Aranaga hesitated before speaking their minds, something few of their colleagues are willing to do publicly. But they felt it was important to do so, and Aranaga added that he felt "hung out to dry" by union leadership.
"I'm not saying old teachers are bad," said Aranaga, "but for every five good ones there's a bad one, and there's no way to get rid of those guys."
Avery said more than 20 Monroe teachers got layoff notices, and it appeared that roughly a third of them would actually lose their jobs.
"And some of those teachers are better than I could ever hope to be," said Aranaga. "In their first year, they're better than I can be."
Here are the videos. The winners are labeled. David Vera's is at the bottom, Monroe High School #4.
.
.
.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez26-2009jun26,0,1202557.column?page=3&track=rss
One reason is that there is currently no meaningful system to evaluate teachers.
Student's video puts school cuts on personal level
Los Angeles Times
Steve Lopez
June 26, 2009
David Vera took up an L.A. school board member's challenge, using images to portray the harm caused by slashed budgets. Education advocates hope his work gets a wide audience.
David Vera, 18, has his young heart set on becoming a film editor or an actor. So the challenge posted on the door of his film arts class at Monroe High School in the San Fernando Valley held obvious appeal.
...The challenge had come from Los Angeles Unified School Board member Tamar Galatzan...
His favorite teacher got a pink slip.
That would be Travis Aranaga, an ambitious young teacher in his third year and loving every minute of his job. Aranaga's parents were both teachers, and he always knew he wanted to follow them into the profession. He went and got two masters degrees and threw himself into the job at Monroe.
But none of that mattered. The school district based its job cuts on seniority alone, and Aranaga's neck was under the budget ax...
"That's a special student," said Barbara Avery, telling me Vera was a delight to have in class, and his French wasn't bad, either. "Every once in a while, you get a kid like that."
Avery agreed. "It's just horrible," she said. "Absolutely horrible."
There has to be a way for teachers, administrators, parents and students to fairly evaluate teachers, Avery said, so that when layoffs are necessary, experience is not the only consideration.
She expects to get some heat for advocating that sort of reform. She's Monroe's co-chapter chair of United Teachers Los Angeles, and the union has staunchly defended basing layoffs on seniority, not evaluations.
I should note that Avery and Aranaga hesitated before speaking their minds, something few of their colleagues are willing to do publicly. But they felt it was important to do so, and Aranaga added that he felt "hung out to dry" by union leadership.
"I'm not saying old teachers are bad," said Aranaga, "but for every five good ones there's a bad one, and there's no way to get rid of those guys."
Avery said more than 20 Monroe teachers got layoff notices, and it appeared that roughly a third of them would actually lose their jobs.
"And some of those teachers are better than I could ever hope to be," said Aranaga. "In their first year, they're better than I can be."
Here are the videos. The winners are labeled. David Vera's is at the bottom, Monroe High School #4.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez26-2009jun26,0,1202557.column?page=3&track=rss
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