Vergara v. California; what motivates people like former Chula Vista Educators boss, executive director Tim O'Neill of South County Teachers United, to support the current useless system of teacher evaluations?

Tim O'Neill violated union by-laws when he refused to allow a teacher to present an ethics complaint to Chula Vista Educators directors.

San Diego's liberals seem to be far more obedient to the California Teachers Association than Los Angeles liberals, and students suffer for it. Here's a bit of the history of that subject. Shame on Richard Barrera for abandoning his principles, apparently in exchange for campaign contributions and a cushy job.

I don't object to tenure. I object to the intransigence of the teachers union in the face of calls for education reform.

Getting rid of tenure will do no good at all, and would likely do harm, if teacher evaluations continue to be as worthless as they are now.

If we get rid of tenure we'll just have to worry more about the already-existing problem of principals protecting their own careers by making alliances with mediocre but popular and politically-strong teachers. I get the feeling that David Welch, mogul of Student Matters, honestly doesn't know that many principals are former teachers who switched to the front office when they realized that they don't have what it takes to make it in the classroom.

I also get the feeling that Voice of San Diego's education reporter Mario Koran doesn't know this, either.

HAS VOICE OF SAN DIEGO SABOTAGED THE DEBATE ON TENURE AND TEACHER EVALUATIONS?


Emily Alpert Reyes

Voice of San Diego muzzled and then fired its education reporter, Emily Alpert (now Reyes), who knew what was going on in schools. The reason for this seems to be related to the politics and big bucks of VOSD's big donor trio Buzz Woolley, Irwin Jacobs and Rod Dammeyer who are deeply involved in charter schools and anti-union politics.


Voice of San Diego founder Buzz Woolley

Just before she was fired, Emily Alpert was one of the few people in San Diego doing serious research on teacher layoffs based on seniority. She dared to bring up the topic of teacher evaluations. If VOSD donor trio Buzz Woolley, Irwin Jacobs and Rod Dammeyer were really interested in improving education for all children they would have fallen all over themselves to keep Emily in San Diego. (Emily now works for the Los Angeles Times, but she's not writing about education.)


Irwin Jacobs, Voice of San Diego's major donor

My belief is that Buzz Woolley, Irwin Jacobs and Rod Dammeyer want to improve education for just enough students so that they can run their businesses with American employees--and they want those students in charter schools. They think they can have a flourishing society while the middle and working classes sink lower and lower.


Rod Dammeyer, charter schools advocate and political donor

Note: Buzz, Irwin and Rod also tried to remake the San Diego Unified School Board with appointed members who would undermine the elected members. They seems to think we'd do better without democracy.

IS THE CALIFORNIA TEACHERS ASSOCIATION TRYING TO SELF-DESTRUCT?

You might think that the teachers union could manage to do a better job of acting in the interest of all citizens than Buzz, Irwin and Rod have done.

Sadly, this does not seem to be the case.

I believe that schools can be fixed without getting rid of tenure (I have described one such plan HERE), but schools can't be fixed as long as the California Teachers Association stands in the way.

Something clearly needs to be done, but Richard Barrera doesn't seem to want to address the problem of rampant mediocrity among teachers. It's actually a bigger problem than the incompetence of about 10% teachers. I wouldn't use evaluations to fire teachers; evaluations are needed to help teachers become highly competent.

Sadly, Barrera will likely continue to toe the line for the people who control the California Teachers Association, so reform is looking unlikely. CTA doesn't want teachers to be held accountable; it wants to continue the politically-convenient system of principal evaluations.

The current system is such a joke that principals rarely even bother to observe teachers.

See all posts re teacher evaluations.

Teachers need to have a union. But why can't it be better than this one? Couldn't it be one without people like Tim O'Neill? (See comment at the end of this post.)


VOICE OF SAN DIEGO STORY ON RICHARD BARRERA'S TESTIMONY AT VERGARA TRIAL

Teachers Call Upon San Diego School Trustee to Help Save Seniority Rules
By: Mario Koran
Voice of San Diego
May 2, 2014

In 2010, when San Diego Unified was in the throes of a budget crisis and staring down a round of layoffs, school board trustee Richard Barrera told U-T San Diego, “Pink-slipping disproportionately affects poorer schools – absolutely.”

Now, that argument is the basis of Vergara v. California, a case that could blow up deeply rooted protections for California teachers. Barrera, who is now the leader of the San Diego Imperial Counties Labor Council, which includes the teachers union, changed his tune when he testified in the case.

Teachers see the policies that force the youngest teachers to bear the brunt of layoffs as the fairest possible, he argued. Replacing it with a system that requires administrators to make value judgments would erode trust as teachers vied for their spots, he said.

Along with attorneys from the state and the California Teachers Association, Barrera pointed to San Diego Unified as proof that a district can succeed because of the current policies – not in spite of it.

The case is the product of Students Matter, a group founded by Silicon Valley business mogul David F. Welch, a group of California students and a heavyweight cast of attorneys. They initiated the suit and claim the teacher protections violate students’ constitutional rights to equal access to quality education.

California law makes it nearly impossible to dismiss a bad teacher once he or she has received tenure, they argue, and last-hired-first-fired layoff policies disproportionately impact schools in high-poverty areas because they’re more likely to have less experienced teachers. Layoffs at these schools, then, create more turnover and worsen the experience for students.

But Barrera said that because San Diego Unified has had a good relationship with its teachers union, it’s been able to avoid mass layoffs in the first place.

In the grip of the budget crises, about 1,100 teachers were issued pink-slips in 2011, and all but 200 of those were rescinded, he said. And when 1,500 teachers were laid off in 2012, everyone was invited back.

Josh Lipshutz, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told VOSD he found this part of Barrera’s testimony bizarre. “Look, nobody wants layoffs. But layoffs are reality,” Lipshutz said.v “We’re not arguing that teachers should be laid off. But in speaking with administrators we heard over and over that everybody knows who the worst teachers are. All we’re saying is that in a layoff environment, why would you not want to include those teachers?” he said.

And avoiding layoffs in dark budget times also comes at a very real cost.

At this week’s school board meeting, trustee and fiscal wonk Scott Barnett castigated the rest of the school board for promising teachers pay raises that it couldn’t afford and selling off real estate to make up the difference.

Even though the district got money from Prop. 30, a voter-approved statewide measure meant to stave off drastic cuts to schools, San Diego Unified is facing a $100 million budget shortfall.

“Guess what? The proposed hole is bigger next year than this year because of this board’s inability to have any semblance of control,” Barnett said.

Holding Up San Diego as a Model

Barrera said that the idea that layoffs disproportionately impact poor schools doesn’t capture reality.

He said Central Elementary in City Heights, the school that Superintendent Cindy Marten once ran, is a good example of how a school can create a culture where teachers want to stick around.

Barrera said a school like Central is possible because teachers share strategies for what works in the classroom. In other words, if a district were to try to measure which teachers were better, teachers might be afraid to share what works with a competitive colleague.

“If we replace the seniority system – one which most people tend to see as fair – with one that teachers see as unfair or arbitrary, we’re going to dramatically hurt trust between teachers and their principals,” he said.

Still, schools like Jackson Elementary in City Heights, now Fay Elementary, might say the problem is a little bit more serious. During the budget crises, high-poverty schools like Fay – which had less experienced teachers – were hit hardest by last-in-first-out layoff policies.

In 2008, 24 out of its 26 teachers received layoff notices. Most of those ended up being rescinded, but in 2011, when 25 out of 27 teachers got pink slips – it was deja vu all over again.

“The reality is,” Lipshutz said, “that once the pink slips go out, the damage is already done.”

Teachers will often look for positions in more stable districts, and “it’s very discouraging to be treated as a number, to be told that you don’t have value beside your hire-date,” he said.

Barrera doesn’t disagree. “That’s all the more reason that we need to do what we can to avoid pink slips and layoffs,” he said. “Pink slips are disruptive, yes, but what’s more disruptive is laying off teachers and having huge class sizes.”

So What’s a Good Teacher?

Barrera said the major hole with the Vergara plaintiffs’ case is that they never clarified what, exactly, makes a teacher ineffective. In fact, the defense led with that point in its closing brief.

Of course, rebooting the criteria to measure teacher performance depends on whether the plaintiffs can persuade the judge that measures like test scores can be considered.

Plaintiffs leaned on Harvard researcher Thomas J. Kane, who said black and Latino students in Los Angeles Unified were more likely than their white and Asian peers to be taught by the worst teachers.

Kane reached his conclusion by looking at teacher effectiveness through a value-added formula, which measures improvements in student test scores over time.

To be sure, value-added formulas aren’t universally accepted. Critics like education historian Diane Ravitch have railed against them for years. Another said they resulted in “mathematical intimidation” from school administrators.

One problem, Barrera said, is that the scores appear objective, but fail to account for poverty, or other factors that influence learning. He said he isn’t opposed to all changes to the evaluation system, but they should begin a conversation about the real goal: quality teaching.

“From a policy level, you think we’d start with questions about what’s working and how we could do more of that, instead of trying to force these blunt instruments in through the court system,” Barrera said.

Lipshutz said poverty was a theme woven throughout the trial.

“To us, that’s a red-herring. We don’t dispute that poverty is a factor in student learning,” he said. “The question to us is whether the laws that are in place are harming students and preventing them from getting the best education they possibly could. And we showed very clearly that the answer is yes.”

COMMENTS

Here's a comment I found intriguing (for personal reasons):

Tim O'Neill, former executive director for CTA affiliates in Chula Vista

Tim ONeill (cvtimo)

The Vergara lawsuit claims that seniority based layoffs negatively discriminate against children of color. A valid critical commentary or report would show how this claim holds water in ANY school district in San Diego County over the past several years when schools have been hit by budget cuts of 25% or more.

The fact of the matter is that there have been none. All the union-haters should consider this in their world view and perhaps question the motives of the plaintiffs in this case.

Maura Larkins comment:

Tim,
Are you calling Richard Barrera a "union-hater" for saying, "“Pink-slipping disproportionately affects poorer schools – absolutely”?

I don't think the charge would fit, since he is the CEO of the San Diego Imperial Counties Labor Council.

Also, the ACLU sued the Los Angeles Unified School District based on the devastating impact of teacher layoffs on poorer schools. Are you calling the Los Angeles ACLU "union-haters"?

Maybe you should stop with the name-calling and try to come up with a solution to the problem.

[Maura Larkins note: I suspect this "Tim O'Neill" may be the same Tim O'Neill who worked for the California Teachers Association until 2010, and who violated the Chula Vista Educators bylaws by refusing to allow me to make an ethics complaint to the CVE Representative Council.

See a copy HERE of his letter to me in which he states that Gina Boyd herself denied my request to appear before the Rep Council to make an ethics complaint about Gina Boyd!

The Tim O'Neill who was the executive director of Chula Vista Educators worked hard to make sure that politics ruled in the district. That Tim O'Neill aided and abetted multiple violations of labor law and the teachers contract to ensure the re-election of CVE President Gina Boyd. But he himself lost his job and was apparently sent to work anonymously (until now, it appears) in the CTA offices in Mission Valley.]

COMMENT FROM JIM JONES:

Tim,
Either seniority protects the best teachers, and also keeps them out of the worst cesspool schools, which are minority schools, or seniority doesn't matter, it can't go both ways.
It's time for teachers to step up and put kids first, stop using them as pawns to feed public union greed.



Tim O'Neill, former executive director for CTA affiliates in Chula Vista

COMMENT FROM TIM O'NEILL:

"Using them to feed public union greed", huh? Please be a bit more specific in your retoric (sic).

Teaching assignments (school, grade level, subject assignments) are regulated in each school district collective bargaining agreement negotiated with the local teacher union in that district, not regulated by state law, which this lawsuit addresses.

The vast majority of these negotiated agreements places seniority as a subordinate criterion to many other factors such as subject matter credential, and most notably the opinion of the school principal. In other words, seniority, in most cases is NOT the determining factor with regard to a teacher's assignment.

It is true that some teaching assignments are more difficult than others. It may also be that vacancies occur more regularly at schools with such assignments, but for a variety of reasons. Some of the "best" teachers work at these schools; sometimes they don't. Are you suggesting that the "best" teachers be limited in their options as to where they would choose to work?


Maura Larkins response:

No, Tim, Mr. Jones is not suggesting that tenured teachers be limited as to where they work. He is simply suggesting that tenured teachers tend to use their seniority to get out of--and stay out of--schools in low income areas. In fact, I must say that I did notice during my years in Chula Vista Elementary School District that teachers with high seniority tended to snap up the job openings at schools in high-income areas.

I think that the success of children should not be subordinated to any goal at all that the teachers union might have.

It doesn't matter what the reason is that CTA has refused to allow any real progress in evaluating teachers--whatever it is, it's not a good enough reason. The fact is that the current system of principal evaluations is a joke, and it's part of the reason so many kids are failing to get decent educations.

I had a principal who came in fresh to the school, not knowing that I had been given all the lowest-achieving students in my grade level because I was also given the English-learners and it seemed to make sense. I was perfectly happy with the situation.

Principal Charlie Padilla retired in the middle of the school year

The new principal must have looked at the students' tests before sending them in to be scored, because he wrote on my evaluation that I had low student test scores--before the results came back! My students were progressing at top speed, particularly in their critical thinking, but they were starting the year from far behind the kids in the other classes at my grade level.

In fact, when the scores came back, they showed that my students had made one, two, three or even four years progress when they were with me.

That principal was highly regarded because he was highly political. But, strangely, he eventually retired from the district in the middle of the school year. He got another job, so obviously he wasn't interesting in actually retiring. It sometimes takes a while to figure out how bad some principals are. This would be less of a problem if principals weren't in charge of evaluations.

I once heard former CTA Executive Director Carolyn Doggett pointing out to CTA affiliate presidents that if they didn't improve education, they would become irrelevant. CTA would be wise to come up with an evaluation plan pronto. What's your plan for teacher evaluations, Tim?

COMMENT FROM francesca

@Maura Larkins If you taught in the Chula Vista School District, then you are probably more realistic about the idea of using test scores to evaluate teachers. When children have not mastered English, their test scores don't really reflect what they have learned or know.

Maura, Do you have an objective way to measure whether teachers are doing an effective job?


Maura Larkins COMMENT:

Thanks for asking, Francesca! I think observations are the single most important source of effective evaluations, and they should be done frequently by people from outside the school district (to avoid school politics).

Dennis Schamp and Scripps Dad and I had a somewhat detailed discussion recently on what should be observed; you can see our discussion at the bottom of this April 28 VOSD story:

The Case That Could Blow Up Teacher Tenure

The two main things we discussed as needing to be observed are:
1) What is the teacher doing?
2) What are the students doing?

Non-professionals could be used to make superficial observations. It would be up to professionals to evaluate the data and follow up with their own observations.

Scripps Dad says he's been involved in a good teacher evaluation program.

Also, student test scores would only be helpful after a number of years of gathering data about a teacher's performance, and even then, research shows that these scores are reliable indicators only for the top 10% and bottom 10% of teachers. The other 80% of teachers tend to get extremely variable results.

I do not think evaluations should be used to determine employment.

Instead, I think they should be used to identify the most highly effective teachers and to help average and below-average teachers.

I believe that the most highly effective teachers should then be given responsibility as master teachers to direct the less effective teachers and to give supplemental lessons to students, and to give training to their fellow teachers. This would be cheaper and more effective than bringing in ridiculously expensive outside vendors to do training.

I would expect master teachers to be paid like doctors and lawyers.

UPDATE MAY 5, 2014:

DO UNION LEADERS WANT TO KEEP THE EVALUATION PROCESS POLITICAL SO THEY CAN CONTROL TEACHERS BETTER?

You might be wondering why Tim O'Neill would lead Chula Vista Educators into aiding and abetting a string of illegal actions. Was it merely to protect CVE president Gina Boyd from the ire of the "Castle Park Family" as she was facing a union election? Perhaps not.

I just discovered a startling connection while perusing Facebook. The principal I mentioned above was Charlie Padilla. Here's a post about his middle-of-the-year retirement from CVESD. He turns out to be a personal friend of Tim O'Neill!


COINCIDENCE?
Charlie Padilla on the left, Tim O'Neill on the right.
Does this photo from Charlie Padilla's public Facebook
page of three couples out together for dinner on April 27,
2014 help explain why Tim O'Neill might be motivated to aid
and abet a string of illegal actions and violations of contract?

Tim O'Neill wouldn't allow the CVE board of directors to hear my complaint about him and Gina Boyd. CTA is a very top-down organization, run by administrators like Tim O'Neill--and CTA lawyers--rather than elected union officials.

I have spoken out for years on the behind-the-scenes collusion between the teachers union and school administrators. They often spar in public, but Wayne Johnson (President of CTA from 1999-2003) instituted a policy in which CTA affiliates would play nicer with school districts in order to reach more deals behind closed doors.

Is this the problem with Manuel Yvellez and the other Chula Vista Educators union leaders who are struggling with Common Core?

From Education Week:

...There are cases in which educators themselves need more time simply practicing the mathematics and learning different ways of conceiving of it, she added. Fractions, which under the common core are introduced in 3rd grade, tops that list.

It's a point reiterated by Katherine K. Merseth, a senior lecturer and the director of teacher education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who believes the shifts will require more programs to improve their content preparation.

Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., is sharing a library of video-based tools in order to familiarize the state’s teacher colleges with the common core and its implications for preparing new talent.

"Kids can learn to invert and multiply in order to divide fractions, but then they look at the teacher and ask, 'Why'?" Ms. Merseth said. "We have to make sure that our students and our graduates can answer exactly that question."

The lack of preparation of teachers (especially if they are union leaders like Manuel Yvellez) has been causing a lot of problems for the implementation of Common Core.

See blog posts about Common Core from CVESD Reporter.

Mother of Chula Vista student calls former teacher's behavior "the ultimate betrayal"

John Kinloch

Chula Vista Elementary School District has a history of covering up or ignoring safety issues. They need to create at least a rudimentary system of observations of teachers to protect children--and to improve education. Principals tend to spend most of their time with their favorite teacher friends. In my experience, many principals have a few teachers who spend large amounts of time in the principal's office, giving advice (or, in some cases, instructions) to the principal. These principals spend almost zero time observing the teachers who aren't part of their office furniture.

EXCLUSIVE: Mother of Chula Vista student calls former teacher's behavior "the ultimate betrayal"
By Derek Staahl
Channel 6
Apr 8, 2014

CHULA VISTA – The mother of a Chula Vista teen who testified that he was molested by his former second grade teacher is speaking out for the first time.

“It's the ultimate betrayal. He betrayed my son. He shamed him. He brought his whole life down,” the boy’s mother said. She agreed to speak with San Diego 6 on condition of anonymity.

The boy’s former teacher, 42-year-old John Raymond Kinloch, is behind bars awaiting trial on 44 felony counts, Deputy District Attorney Enrique Camarena said.

The San Ysidro man is accused of sexual misconduct with five boys. Of those, Kinloch is accused of physically molesting two of them, Camarena said. Most of the charges against Kinloch are connected to the former student, who is now 17.

“He took so much away from my son. Even though my son is strong and everything, I know that it's eating him up inside. It's eating me up inside,” the mother said.

The woman told San Diego 6 that she and her son viewed Kinloch “like a family member.” After Kinloch taught the boy in second grade at Feaster Charter School in 2003, they kept in touch and developed a close friendship. Over the next several years, Kinloch became a father figure for the boy, the mother said.

“He went to birthday parties, he went to family reunions, he took my son to games – basketball games,” she said. “When I had heart surgery, when I had cancer, I confided in him. I always looked at him, like ‘Wow, this guy -- he's like a dad to my son.’”

The woman said the student’s biological father left when the boy was about 3 years old.

Kinloch and the boy maintained a close relationship from 2003 until 2012, when he was first arrested on suspicion of child pornography after an investigation by the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Once news of the arrest broke, the woman says her son opened up to her about what had happened over the last nine years.

“I said, ‘Did he ever touch you? Did he ever say anything inappropriate? Did he ever, you know, do anything?’ And he dropped his head. That's when I knew,” she said. She encouraged her son to go to the police, and he became the centerpiece of the criminal prosecution against Kinloch.

Kinloch is accused of improperly touching and kissing the boy, along with asking him to remove his clothes and taking pictures of him naked, according to court documents. Kinloch has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His trial has been delayed until August 25.

The woman has filed a lawsuit against the former teacher, the Chula Vista Elementary School District, and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

“Mr. Kinloch was in his classroom at school, disrobing this child with the door locked. That's negligent supervision in my mind,” Elaine Heine, the mother’s attorney, told San Diego 6.

The lawsuit, filed in August, also argues that the Chula Vista Elementary School District negligently hired Kinloch because he was a known distributor of child pornography.

In 1998, Kinloch agreed to testify in Great Britain about his involvement in a child pornography ring. In exchange for his testimony, the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed to offer Kinloch immunity, and he was never charged, Camarena said. Kinloch was hired by the school district two years later.

“He should never have been a teacher. And I keep saying if he had never been a teacher, my son wouldn't have been going through this for the rest of his life,” the mother said.

The Chula Vista Elementary School District has filed a lawsuit against the federal Department of Justice, trying to determine why Kinloch’s background check raised no red flags.

See video.

Channel 6 San Diego: Teen files lawsuit against CVESD teacher accused of sexual molestation

John Raymond Kinloch (Photo from Crime Voice.com)

CVESD wants to blame someone else for not warning them ahead of time about Kinloch. But what about all the years that Kinloch spent at CVESD? After a few years, it simply makes no sense for district officials to claim they had no idea what was going on--unless the district also admits that it actually has very little clue about what is going on in most classrooms. Teacher evaluations are a joke, but not a very funny joke.

The district has a policy of letting school politics guide personnel decisions. And the policy is hurting a lot of kids. It's time for administrators to start showing up in classrooms, and to start talking to ALL staff members. When it comes to what kind of people are running classrooms, the blissful ignorance of administrators needs to end.

See SDER teacher evaluation plan.

See also "California Teachers Association protects child molesting teacher."

See all posts about arrested CVESD teacher John Kinloch.

Exclusive: Teen files lawsuit against teacher accused of sexual molestation
By Derek Staahl
Channel 6 San Diego
08 Jan 2014

CHULA VISTA – A Chula Vista teenager who testified that he was sexually exploited by his former second grade teacher has filed a lawsuit against the man and the school district.

The boy, who is now 17, accuses John Raymond Kinloch of childhood sexual assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Kinloch is being held on 36 felony counts involving five alleged victims, according to Deputy District Attorney Enrique Camarena. The charges include lewd acts upon a child and possession of child pornography.

According to court documents, Kinloch taught the boy at Feaster Charter School and the two developed a close bond. The boy considered the 42-year-old San Ysidro man to be a father figure. The child was in third grade, but still regularly spending time with Kinloch, when the lewd acts began, Camarena said.

Kinloch is accused of improperly touching and kissing the boy, along with asking him to remove his clothes and taking pictures of him naked, according to court documents. Kinloch has pleaded not guilty to the charges and a trial is scheduled for April 1.

“Mr. Kinloch was in his classroom at school, disrobing this child with the door locked. That's negligent supervision in my mind,” Elaine Heine, the boy’s attorney, told San Diego 6.

The boy’s lawsuit, filed in August, also argues that the Chula Vista Elementary School District negligently hired Kinloch because he was a known distributor of child pornography.



In 1998, Kinloch agreed to testify in Great Britain about his involvement in a child pornography ring. In exchange for his testimony, the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed to offer Kinloch immunity, and he was never charged, Camarena said. Kinloch was hired by the school district two years later.

Heine has filed claims against the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing on the boy’s behalf, and plans to add those agencies as defendants in her lawsuit. The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of damages.

The Chula Vista Elementary School District has filed a lawsuit against the federal Department of Justice, trying to determine why Kinloch’s background check raised no red flags.

Tie teacher certification not just to completing a degree or program, but also to classroom performance.

Teacher quality matters more for student achievement, so we should quit certifying teachers who can't teach.

"Finding a way to guarantee an effective teacher in every classroom has vexed reformers for decades." So why not try thinking outside the box? Here's my simple plan: a great teacher in every classroom right now, without firing anyone.

See all posts regarding Common Core.

Common Core turns focus to teacher training: Column
Laura Vanderkam
USATODAY
October 1, 2013

Tie teacher certification not just to completing a degree or program, but also to classroom performance.
45 states have signed on to the Common Core idea.
A growing research consensus finds that teacher quality matters more than any other school-based factor.

Shortly before school started this fall, New York parents got some grim news. Student scores on old tests looked decent, but once the state aligned its tests with the more rigorous Common Core standards, proficiency rates plummeted.

Most likely, it will happen in your state, too, because 45 states have signed on to the Common Core idea. Soon parents nationwide will see just how much more students need to learn to succeed.

The good news is that changing one variable could change a lot. A growing research consensus finds that teacher quality matters more for student achievement than any other school-based factor (such as class size). Economist Eric Hanushek has calculated that replacing the bottom 7%-12% of U.S. teachers with average teachers would rocket the U.S. to the academic company of the world's highest-performing countries.

The bad news is that finding a way to guarantee an effective teacher in every classroom has vexed reformers for decades. If American schools want to clear the new bar set for them, they'll need a new idea, and they have at least one promising option. A few innovative programs are tying teacher certification not just to completing a degree or program, but also to classroom performance.

Alternative certification programs (think Teach for America) have blossomed in recent decades, but most new teachers still come from traditional schools of education where course work in these programs covers the theory, history and politics of education. Even great grades don't give principals insight into whether a new teacher will command the attention of 30 third-graders.

"Every time principals hire a teacher, they make a gamble," says Christina Hall, co-founder of the Urban Teacher Center. "They don't know if a teacher will improve student performance or not."

Competent teachers

As the stakes get higher, that matters. Students deserve teachers who are "competent in the real challenges they will face," says Stig Leschly, of Match Education, a training program in Boston. How do you explain complex content clearly? What does it mean to have high expectations for students in terms of how you comport yourself Monday morning?

These skills can be taught — and measured.

Match Education, for instance, puts its trainees through an intense program involving hundreds of student simulations. Halfway through the first year, these prospective teachers are scored on mini lessons presented to students. After several months of student teaching, they become full-time teachers but are granted a "Master's in Effective Teaching" only after an assessment of their first year on the job — using principal evaluations, student survey data, expert evaluations and student achievement data.

The Urban Teacher Center trains teachers in math, English language arts and special education, then places them in about 50 schools in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. To be certified, these new teachers must demonstrate student achievement over their first few years on the job.

For principals looking at a UTC-certified teacher's résumé, Hall says, they'll know "we cut the tail off the bell curve."

Rookie teachers

To be sure, such accountability puts pressure on rookie teachers, but "there's this mythology in education that your first year is just something you live through and then you become a real teacher," says Tim Daly, head of TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project), which trains thousands of new teachers across the country. In reality, performance in training and your first year is fairly predictive of future performance.

Of course, what "performance" means for teachers is an ongoing debate. While UTC focuses on math and English — for which there are tests that show whether a teacher has added value — not all subjects have such assessments.

That doesn't mean accountability can't happen. TNTP evaluates teachers based on student surveys, principal evaluations and feedback from observers who score teachers on classroom performance. These scores are compared with other teachers teaching similar students. The goal is to certify only those TNTP teachers who are "better than most of their peers," says Daly. If teachers are not on a trajectory to be effective, "we part ways."

Used broadly, such accountability will help students meet the Common Core's standards. The key is to recognize, as Ellen Moir, founder of the New Teacher Center puts it, that "we don't have to certify every person that goes into a program."

Students deserve teachers who have data to show they can bring out their best.

Laura Vanderkam, author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

Teachers who don't know how to teach are complaining about Common Core in Chula Vista Elementary School District

A parent protests at CVESD (apparently motivated by negative attitudes of teachers toward Common Core)

See all posts regarding Common Core.

Good grief, teachers! You're supposed to be professionals. If someone gives you a concept to teach, you should be able to teach it.

For years, teachers thought they were doing their jobs as long as they tore through the curriculum, making sure they were always on the highest page possible in the book. They weren't giving the kids--not even the fast learners--a deep understanding of concepts. If they had focused intensely on basic concepts they wouldn't have left so many kids behind.

Now they're complaining because no one is spoon-feeding them with lesson plans by pointing to a page in a textbook.

Common Core is nothing more than the type of teaching that all these teachers should have been doing all along.

Parents should be pleased. The school district is finally doing the right thing.

School officials have been cashing in on education programs as far back as I can remember. At last they've got a program to be proud of. It's time the US caught up to the teaching methods of higher-scoring countries.

Chula Vista school admin moves forward with Common Core Standards
Resistant parents say they are ignored and harassed
By Susan Luzzaro
Nov. 18, 2013

The Chula Vista Elementary School District had their first public hearing November 13 on how to deploy 4.6 million state dollars to implement “Common Core State Standards” and the “Smarter Balanced Assessments.” The rollout of these new standards and obligatory computerized testing generated a variety of concerns from district parents.

Mothers with young children waited hours to give their input because the district agendizes public comment last. One mother prefaced her remarks by quoting the head of the Chicago teachers’ union, Karen Lewis, who said, “We’re flying the Common Core airplane as we’re building it.”

[Maura Larkins comment: If a teacher didn't learn how to fly the teaching-a-concept airplane in teacher preparation classes, he or she certainly should have figured it out after a year or two in the classroom. If you don't manage to teach everything in the Standards, so be it. But don't pretend you don't know how to get to work and create the hard data that will help refine the time frames for the Standards.]

The quote refers to the fact that Common Core Standards were not field-tested prior to implementation and state-approved materials, and some Spanish-language testing material is still in the process of being designed.

Part of the district’s discussion the night of November 13 dealt with how best to use the one-time-only state money to get schools wired, purchase laptops, train teachers, acquire materials, and get students keyboard-ready for tests.

The district is considering apportioning $2.2 million to purchase laptop computers for the assessments; this will include 2759 laptops and 89 carts. The district considered iPads but determined the keyboard was not the best match.

In addition to state funding, technological upgrades for the school sites will come from district funds, Proposition E, and Community Facilities District Funding. The remaining money from the $4.6 million will be divided between teacher training and educational materials.

Parents who spoke in opposition to the Common Core Standards and Smarter Balance Assessment addressed several themes.

Parent Kristin Phatak said she is concerned that the new standards and computer assessments are driven by profits rather than what is good for kids. She asked the board: “Do any of the school-board members, their businesses, or nonprofits stand to make financial gains from the Common Core industry that has been built around our children?”

Phatak went on to say that in January 2013, the president of the board, Douglas Luffborough III, was a speaker at the Common Core Institute professional learning series “where his credentials included Common Core Blackbelt” a title which Phatak said offered lucrative speaking engagements.

[Maura Larkins comment: Good for him. Is Phatak suggesting that Common Core is a plot by Doug Luffborough to make money? Hardly. Sara Marie Brenner writes for the Washington Post, "Many people were invovled in the creation of the standards, including teachers, administrations, members of the business community, and even people with the ACT exam. You may see the entire list of people who took part in framing the standards on the National Governors Association website. The claim that teachers were not involved in framing these standards is blatantly false."

I think a more interesting question about Dough Luffborough is the one I discuss HERE.] ]

Phatak continued, “In February 2013 the president of the board presented a workshop at the Common Core Institute for the National Conference on Common Core Assessment where he was a keynote speaker. His title for this event was vice president for the Center of College and Career Readiness.”

In June 2011, Luffborough was scheduled to speak at the national conference on career and college readiness. His title at this event was vice president of Common Core Services West.

In a November 15 interview, Luffborough stated that he does not work for any of the companies listed in his bios and he does not have a "black belt" in Common Core Standards. He said the bios are mistaken and he will review them more closely in the future. Luffborough said he is a motivational speaker and that he was paid to speak at these conferences through his own motivational speaker business.

He said he has done educational consulting work for the past 20 years. From 2005–2009, he worked for Renaissance Learning, Inc. According to the LinkedIn website, “Renaissance Learning is the world's leading provider of computer-based assessment technology for K–12 schools. Renaissance Learning's tools provide daily formative assessment and periodic progress-monitoring technology to enhance the curriculum, support differentiated instruction…."

Luffborough was appointed to the school board to fill a vacancy in February 2009 and elected 2010.

Luffborough said he has three children in the Chula Vista school system, which was part of his incentive to be on the school board. He said he supports Common Core Standards and, as a parent, “I have seen my kids learning and growing.”

Phatak also pointed out that high-level administration in the district, cabinet members, received merit or bonus pay for student test scores. When the Reader asked her to verify that assertion, she forwarded an email from superintendent Francisco Escobedo that reads in part:

“Merit pay is not part of our compensation package for principals, teachers or administrators, however my cabinet does receive a merit pay depending on their overall evaluation. The evaluation consists of a multi-metric set of standards, which includes overall test scores as one measure.”

Another district parent named Anntoinette spoke about children experiencing stress and called it a tragedy that children who had once loved school and were successful now dread going to school.

[Maura Larkins comment: Whose fault is it if children are experiencing stress? The teachers are either venting their anger in their classrooms or simply don't know how to teach concepts. Either way, they should be ashamed of themselves for making kids suffer. But the fact is that the district has long used the most rigid, negative, unimaginative and controlling teachers to run the political machines in school staff lounges, so this is a case of chickens coming home to roost. Board members Pam Smith and Larry Cunningham have behaved the most egregiously in this respect.]

Parent Audrey read a letter she had written to her child’s principal asking to opt out her kindergartener from testing and test preparation. The letter said she has “watched with a breaking heart how her daughter’s love of school has dwindled by the inappropriate standards placed on her at her tender age.”

[Maura Larkins' response: My students always liked taking tests. I never made them worry about how they did. Tests are fun--an intellectual challenge, like playing a game. No matter what standards are in place, the teacher is always responsible for keeping kids motivated and confident. If a child isn't ready to master a specific skill, that child shouldn't be made to suffer. The child should be taught the skill at an introductory level, a level compatible with the child's readiness.]

Audrey then read a response from the principal that read, “your message has been received, the school takes the initiative to provide assessments in order to measure and monitor the progress of student learning, this must continue to provide a basic educational program…”

Parent Amber said she volunteers in her daughter’s kindergarten class because “I love to interact with the children and support my child’s hard working teacher.”

But, Amber said, “Earlier this week, a five-year-old was crying because she was frustrated with the day’s assignment of paragraph-mapping. Most of the children are struggling with learning the alphabet and they are being asked to deconstruct a paragraph….”

[Maura Larkins comment: I have listened for years to teachers attacking their colleagues who did not push kindergarteners to read. At Castle Park Elementary, a kindergarten teacher was fired, at the insistence of her fellow teachers, for giving kids the verbal background they needed before starting to read. But in the story above, it was the teacher who was at fault if she was expecting a child to read and write when mapping a paragraph, or to do anything else that was beyond her developmental stage. A 5-year-old can have lots of fun discussing an interesting story that is one paragraph in length. This teacher might be hard-working, but she doesn't seem to know how to make concepts accessible to 5-year-olds.]

Amber said she is also planning on opting out her child from all state and local testing because “that is where the money is being made and the data is being collected, and these tests will have no bearing on our children’s future.”

Cindy said, “My child has also been having difficulties with Common Core, starting last year. We had her crying, confused, utterly upset anytime she was given homework and I couldn’t help her with it. And I am a university graduate….”

These parents assert that they have been ignored by the board and some say the district has harassed them when they have attempted to share their point of view at district meetings.

Read more: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2013/nov/18/ticker-chula-vista-school-admin-common-core/#ixzz2l3Nb7j4K be able to teach it.

CVESD hired a teacher profiled in the Reader as a child pornographer

CVESD is still getting fallout from Rick Werlin's years as Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources.

Officials claim to be angry that they did not know in 2000 about John Raymond Kinloch's involvement in a 1998 child pornography case that was described in the San Diego Reader. Kinloch was recently arrested for child pornography.

But the truth is that current Superintendent Francisco Escobedo is pals with Rick Werlin, the Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources responsible for hiring Mr. Kinloch, and Maria Guasp, who helped Mr. Werlin implement his policy of concealing the truth about teachers who committed crimes.

When Mr. Werlin was running Human Resources, Board Members Pamela Smith and Larry Cunningham were more than willing to allow Mr. Werlin to ignore the law. Then they managed to quash subpoenas to testify about their actions. They supported a criminal cover-up of the actions of administrators, union leaders and Castle Park teachers.

The district managed to unload Werlin, and when West Contra Costa County asked for information about Werlin, CVESD didn't breathe a word about the $100,000s in legal expenses that Werlin incurred. One wonders how much CVESD officials actually care about children.

CVESD seems to have more than its share of child pornographers. October, a another CVESD teacher was arrested for child porn.

See all Francisco Escobedo posts.

Chula Vista teacher arrested in child porn case
By Pauline Repard and Susan Shroder
UTSD
Dec. 5, 2012

...Chula Vista Elementary School District officials are angry that they did not know about the case when they hired John Raymond Kinloch in 2000, spokesman Anthony Millican said.

Kinloch, 41, was taken into custody Friday following an investigation by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. He was booked into jail on counts of possession of child pornography, using a minor in an obscene manner and luring a minor for a sex offense, according to the jail website.

The charges do not involve students in Kinloch’s class or in the district, Millican said.

He said Kinloch has taught at Wolf Canyon Elementary School since 2009 and was currently teaching first grade. Kinloch previously taught at Feaster Charter School.

He is on administrative leave and will not be on campus while the legal proceedings continue, Millican said.

Millican said the San Diego Reader published a story in June 1998 that said Kinloch, then a San Diego State student, was going to England to testify in the criminal trial of Christopher Wrigley, a college student accused in trafficking in child pornography. Wrigley’s files contained information that led investigators to Kinloch, and he was offered immunity by federal officials in the United States and England to testify, the Reader reported. He testified during the trial that he exchanged pornographic images of young boys with Wrigley, according to the Birmingham Post & Mail, a British newspaper.

Debra McLaren, principal at Wolf Elementary, sent a letter to parents Friday informing them of the arrest...

Peg Myers makes interesting claims; CTA continues to oppose use of scores to evaluate teachers

What is Peg Myers talking about? She relied on a tiny group of parents to justify the power of a tiny group of teachers to control principal after principal at Castle Park Elementary. CVESD Superintendent Lowell Billings reported at a board meeting that when he transferred Peg Myers, Robin Donlan, Nikki Perez and other members of the "Castle Park Family" out of the school, scores went up greatly.

Local Schools Weigh In On Reform Bill
January 6, 2010
Channel 10 News

SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego school system could be getting a major overhaul as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to sign a bill that would give parents more power to control what happens in their child's school.

While the state Senate approved a bill that could qualify the state for $700 million in federal stimulus money, some educators and experts feel the changes may not be worth the money.

At a glance, Lincoln High School does not measure up to other schools in San Diego County. The school's overall academic performance rating is at 587.

"It's not until you crack the 750, 800 mark can you be considered one of the elites in the city," said Lincoln High School Principal Mel Collins.,

Lincoln High could be one of the schools targeted by a new bill aimed at reworking state schools. The bill would give parents the power to petition to make sweeping changes, including having a principal removed or closing a school if its performance is not up to certain standards.

Sweetwater Union High School District Superintendent Jesus Gandara told 10News, "If you give one group all that power to say, 'we want this principal out,' without teachers having a say, without management having a say, there's a problem there."

"It should be a collective decision made by a number of different entities," said Collins.

Peg Myers of the California Teachers Association said, "We actually have great results in our schools, and that's because we do work with the parents."

The California Teachers Association opposes the state's plan, which would also make it easier for parents to transfer their children to another school...

Why do schools (and teacher unions) have so little regard for gifted teachers?

When a Gifted Teacher Has to Jump Through Hoops Just to Keep His Job, Change Is Needed
By Jay Mathews
Washington Post
August 24, 2009

I am not a big fan of merit pay for high-performing teachers unless the entire school staff is rewarded. But I have no doubt that our current teacher pay upgrade and certification system, based largely on education school credits, is dumb and should be changed.

You disagree? Then let me introduce you to Jonathan Keiler, a social studies teacher at Bowie High School in Prince George's County, where school starts Monday.

It is difficult to argue that Keiler, 49, is anything but one of his county's best teachers. He is the only member of the Bowie High faculty with National Board Certification, having passed a competitive series of tests of his classroom skills that has become a gold standard for American educators. He has a bachelor's degree in philosophy and history from Salisbury University and a law degree from Washington and Lee University. He served four years as an Army Judge Advocate General officer, then was a partner in a private law firm in Bethesda until, as he puts it, he "got sick of law and became a social studies teacher at my alma mater."

He teaches a survey course called Practical Law, as well as Advanced Placement World History and AP Art History. More students signed up for his classes this year than he had periods to teach them. He coaches Bowie's Mock Trial team, the most successful in the county. He has published articles on military history and law in several magazines.

He hates the education school courses teachers must take to be certified and qualify for pay increases. He says they "are generally no more useful or interesting than watching paint dry." But he dutifully accumulated three credit hours at Bowie State University, six through the county's continuing professional education program and three for going through the National Board process. That was more than enough, he was told, for his standard certification.
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Then earlier this month, the county's teacher staffing and certification office informed him that previous officials counted his credits wrong. If Keiler didn't somehow produce three extra credits by the end of September, he would be decertified and any pay increases he received associated with certification would be retroactively revoked...