Opponents of public education emerged from under their rocks last Friday to celebrate the clearance of a hurdle by one of their favorite sons, Colorado State Senator Michael Johnston, D(INO)-33rd. Senator Johnston is shepherding through the legislature his odious SB 10-191 (pdf), a bill which would strip teachers of their due process rights based upon administrative whim, while linking their evaluations to high-stakes tests. All the while, our purported "friends" in the Legislature, under pressure to "do something" regardless of the consequences to our kids and our public schools - are drinking up the hype like...well, Kool-Aid.
Colorado's professional educators are scrambling to kill this hateful bill, but we're up against a cadre of highly motivated antagonists who have been plotting this very coup for a long time now. They have the overt support of the one newspaper in town, Clear Channel owns most of the radio mics, and they're aided by a long-running, nationwide push to vilify teachers and heap upon our shoulders all the ills that beset our public schools.
CEA Radio Ad
Last week, in Edu-haters on the Rampage in Colorado!, I started exploring the connections between Colorado SB 10-191, Senator Johnston, and the Axis of Eval, the small knot of highly-educated, well-connected, woefully inexperienced school "reformers" who claim to have all the answers (and most certainly do know who to blame). These "idealocrats" are launching a nationwide, all-out offensive against the apparent plague of ineffective teachers infesting America's classrooms, under the aegis of conforming to the demands of the federal Race to the Top grant application process. Tonight, I'll look at the bill as Colorado's contribution to this "reform" agenda: the busting of teachers' unions and the replacement of professional, career educators with fast-tracked volunteers serving two-year stints in the classroom.
Are our schools in crisis? Absolutely – have been for years. Years of budget cuts. Years of infrastructure decay. Years of unfunded mandates. The list goes on and on, and it's one that I won't repost here. It's not my intent to climb up on the cross and proclaim that all teachers deserve sainthood for enduring low pay and trying working conditions; we don't – we're people, most good, some bad, doing a tough job the best we can. Nothing more, nothing less. Similarly, I'll not get into a litany of all the stuff I'm already required to do by law, School Board policy, curricular demands, administrative directive, etc. – it's been my experience that most minds are more or less made up as to whether teachers are dedicated professionals or lazy louts, and the only thing that changes them is actually experiencing what it is that teachers do. It's also been my experience that walking a mile in our shoes usually (but, admittedly, not always) makes one's stances a little more pro-teacher.
None of that matters to the "reformers" who view teachers as easily replaceable cogs in a vast, "data-driven" machine. To idealocrats like Senator Johnston and Jon Schnur of New Leaders for New Schools, the key to student success is simply a matter of creating the Perfect Test and making sure that teachers teach to it.
Way Back When
This whole debacle was set in motion decades ago, perhaps as much traceable to the 1983 report A Nation At Risk as anything else. Back then, Americans were warned that high school course offerings were too smorgasbord-like, that grades were rising while homework was decreasing, that kids weren't spending enough time in school, and that there was a shortage of teachers in critical fields. The report laid out specific recommendations and lobbed a few rounds at some sacred cows, and it managed to piss a lot of people off – it even stood against Reagan's desire for prayer, vouchers, and abolition of the Department of Education. It is the ultimate source of the modern "reform" movement, and forms the basis for the "public schools are failing!" mantra we've been hearing ever since its high-profile release.
Virtually every modern school reform movement can trace its origins back to one paragraph or another of A Nation At Risk. Regrettably, these organizations and schools of thought are just as selective when applying the remedies prescribed by the report, which has become something of an ancient, holy writ among them. To wit, you'd never, ever catch an idealocrat blaming the students like those mean old Reaganites:
We define expectations in terms of the level of knowledge, abilities, and skills school and college graduates should possess. They also refer to the time, hard work, behavior, self-discipline, and motivation that are essential for high student achievement.
ANAR: Findings Regarding Expectations
We have apparently moved past such silliness – SB 191 makes no mention of students being responsible for anything at all. Indeed, it could be said that a lot of the ideals reflected by the report now seem more quaint than the Geneva Conventions:
Too few experienced teachers and scholars are involved in writing textbooks. During the past decade or so a large number of texts have been "written down" by their publishers to ever-lower reading levels in response to perceived market demands.
The average salary after 12 years of teaching is only $17,000 per year, and many teachers are required to supplement their income with part-time and summer employment. In addition, individual teachers have little influence in such critical professional decisions as, for example, textbook selection.
and, prophetically (and sadly, and ironically...), this:
We have come to understand that the public will demand that educational and political leaders act forcefully and effectively on these issues. Indeed, such demands have already appeared and could well become a unifying national preoccupation. This unity, however, can be achieved only if we avoid the unproductive tendency of some to search for scapegoats among the victims, such as the beleaguered teachers.
ANAR: Hope and Frustration
If teachers were "beleaguered" in the early the days of the Reagan Administration, imagine where we're at after 30 years of unrelenting siege. Our once-formidable defenses are now reduced to a few pathetic barricades in the streets, the ability to tell our side of the story to the outside world has been effectively cut off for years, and as far as pride goes, we're down to eating sawdust, having roasted our last rat long ago. Perhaps that's why Senator Johnston and his allies have chosen now as the time for their attack – and no, not because he really does want to goad us into cannibalism. A Pollyanna might say it's just to end our suffering and put us out of our misery, but the more likely, more cynical interpretation is that a stake is going to have to be driven through the heart of teachers' professional associations at some point anyway. With the ground as well-prepped for the anti-union forces as it will likely ever be, they must've figured there's no time like the present to launch the offensive that'll "end" the war.
A Nation At Risk contains within its numerous nonbinding edicts and meant-to-be-taken-as-a-whole suggestions the seeds of No Child Left Behind and the rest of our current disaster. These passages might be considered foundational documents of the Axis of Eval:
Standardized tests of achievement (not to be confused with aptitude tests) should be administered at major transition points from one level of schooling to another and particularly from high school to college or work. The purposes of these tests would be to: (a) certify the student's credentials; (b) identify the need for remedial intervention; and (c) identify the opportunity for advanced or accelerated work. The tests should be administered as part of a nationwide (but not Federal) system of State and local standardized tests. This system should include other diagnostic procedures that assist teachers and students to evaluate student progress.
Salaries for the teaching profession should be increased and should be professionally competitive, market-sensitive, and performance-based. Salary, promotion, tenure, and retention decisions should be tied to an effective evaluation system that includes peer review so that superior teachers can be rewarded, average ones encouraged, and poor ones either improved or terminated.
ANAR: Recommendations
No educator I know opposes an effective evaluation system, and peer review doesn't sound like a bad place to start the conversation. That's not where Senator Johnston decided to go with his bill, though: it's like he struck "that includes peer review" from the gospel. I guess that's okay, though, since he seems to have expanded upon the top paragraph by adding purpose (d) provide a basis for denial of teacher due process rights.
It's not within the scope of this article to describe all the buzzword-driven trends and boneheaded reform ideas spawned by A Nation At Risk, but trust me: education is a fad-driven industry, and the report drove more zany ideas than you can shake a slide rule at. Veteran teachers tell stories of seeing the same ideas and methods being recycled under different names, generation after generation:
In the 1970s, it was the open classroom, which knocked out the walls between classes to create flexible space and make learning more fun. Soon, carpenters were tapping away at new walls to get the noise level back down.
In the 1980s, many districts tucked away the phonics books to make way for "whole-language" instruction, which emphasized context and the personal value of reading.
The new books were engaging, but many kids weren't learning to read. Teachers were ordered to dig out the flash cards.
The 1990s brought down new mandates to teach to individual "learning styles - despite a lack of consensus on how to measure learning styles, or whether it is better to teach to a learning style or to help students overcome it.
Even critics note these ideas have valid points. But they were often adopted without data - without balancing the claims of competing teaching techniques - and then taken to extremes.
Perils of the Pendulum: Resisting Education's Fads, Christian Science Monitor, August 25, 1998
The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves
The fad today is to blame the teachers, and it's one that's been building steam since the late 20th century. A December, 1999, article in The American Prospect lays out the general framework:
Today a widely accepted syllogism goes something like this:
Student performance is unsatisfactory because most teachers are themselves pretty dumb. (If they're not the least talented high school grads, then they must be the least able college students.)
Traditional certification encourages hiring academically inferior teachers because it requires courses in pedagogy, not academic content.
Once inferior teachers are hired, tenure and unions make getting rid of them impossible.
Thus, to improve student outcomes, districts need to break the lock of both education schools and unions, by recruiting bright college grads uncorrupted by "methods" courses and by allowing principals to fire teachers who can't raise student test scores.
That was ten years ago – a decade which began with the George W. Bush administration providing the Ultimate Weapon to those who would destroy public education in order to save it. So as to rank schools and students in scientific-looking lists, the educrats promulgated the No Child Left Behind Act as part of the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary & Secondary Education Act (an LBJ-era Great Society program aimed at funding poverty-ridden schools). NCLB required standardized testing in the name of "accountability," and so the paperwork started flowing. In the years since, vast mountains of "data" have been collected, forming the basis for dozens of ed-reform cults and the sales pitches for scores of charlatan-run companies promising that their "data-driven" curriculum is the thneed that a district needs in order to raise flagging test scores.
Given the results, it would seem attaching NCLB to the ESEA was one of those cruel twists of the knife so beloved by conservatives, rather like the suggestion that Reagan replace FDR on the dime. Data can be spun to mean virtually anything the analyzer wishes, and in the case of NCLB numbers, there are hundreds of snake oil salesman with a vested interest in getting the public to perceive schools (and, especially, professional teachers) as "failing." Senator Johnston and his crowd are cynically riding this wave, despite people noticing as early as 2004 that they're surfing naked:
An opinion poll released in December 2003 found that nearly half of school principals and superintendents view the federal legislation as either politically motivated or aimed at undermining public schools. Likewise, a recent study Policy Analysis for California suggests that, because of its requirement to evaluate school progress on the basis of demographic subgroups, the law may disproportionately penalize schools with diverse student populations
No Child Left Behind, edweek.org, September 21, 2004
So, to recap: a Reagan-era report chronicles a host of problems in the American school system. People with a vested, moneyed interest in addressing one or more of the identified problems pick and choose which ideas upon which to focus, and argue over canonization like it was the Synod of Hippo. George W. Bush bastardizes a social program from the War on Poverty in order to declare War on Schools. The data thus generated is then used to scapegoat teachers, who are stripped of their due process rights and fired as a penalty. Without a cadre of professional teachers in the classrooms, districts are forced to turn to training- and volunteer programs to provide a steady stream of enthusiastic-but-ill-equipped recent college grads...and in less than a generation, we will have proven as a nation that it is possible to intellectually regress in a methodical manner, telling ourselves that we're doing right by "the research" the entire way down.
Legislating the Destruction of a Profession
There's a lot of cyber-ink out there that talks about the bill itself, so I'm going to keep my line-by-line critique to a minimum, so that I might focus on the history of this "reform" movement, its perpetrators, and my personal experiences with them. For those interested in researching a bit more, you might want to start with the text of the bill, which survived a number of last-ditch attempts to amend by the heroic Senator Evie Hudak (Real D-19) and passed the Senate 21-14. My own Senator was among a group of turncoat Dems who drank the Kool-Aid and applied the snake oil; thanks to stabs in the back from them, this awful bill will be taken up by the House on Monday or Tuesday.
Other sources include SquareState.net, which has printed diaries on both sides of the debate, and the Colorado Education Association provides a trenchant analysis as to why it sucks. I don't feel particularly obligated to provide the "reformer" side of this debate – it ain't like Senator Johnston is looking to reason with his detractors, and he's completely unwilling to compromise over the deepest concerns that Colorado's professional educators have with the bill.
And what might those include? Well, for starters, there's this:
BEGINNING WITH THE 2011-2012 SCHOOL YEAR, TEACHERS SHALL EARN NONPROBATIONARY STATUS BASED ON THREE CONSECUTIVE YEARS OF DEMONSTRATED EFFECTIVENESS AND SHALL LOSE NONPROBATIONARY STATUS BASED ON TWO CONSECUTIVE YEARS OF DEMONSTRATED INEFFECTIVENESS.
"Probationary" and "non-probationary" status refer to a teacher's right to due process in the event of termination, as established under Colorado's Teacher Employment, Compensation and Dismissal Act of 1990. Commonly referred to as "tenure," it's not – teachers can be, and are, fired. Usually earned after three years of satisfactory or better performance (and during which period a teacher may be fired with no better cause than "you're not a good fit"), all that non-probationary status confers to a teacher is an obligation on behalf of his or her employer to justify why they now wish to fire a long-term employee. In other words, a non-probationary can't be fired on a whim; a probationary teacher can. Even then, non-probationary teachers may be fired through a process that looks fairly good...on paper:
- The superintendent recommends dismissal at a school board meeting. The school board accepts the charges (it does not vote) and provides written notice of the charges to the teacher within three days of the recommendation for dismissal.
- The teacher may, within five working days of receiving the charges, request a dismissal hearing under the law.
- The teacher (and his/her representative) and the school board (usually represented by an attor-ney) select a neutral hearing officer who sets a hearing date within 30 days.
- The hearing officer conducts the hearing and renders a decision within 20 days. The hearing officer may recommend to the school board that the teacher be dismissed or retained; this decision is advisory to the board.
- The school board must consider the hearing officer's recommendation within 20 days. The board may retain or dismiss the teacher or place the teacher on probation for one year.
- The teacher may, within 20 days, appeal the school board's decision to the Court of Appeals.
- The Court of Appeals reviews the hearing transcript and evidence submitted and issues a decision, after which the teacher or school board may request a review by the Colorado Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is not required to review the case and may let the Court of Appeals’ decision stand. If an appeal is filed, the law provides that the losing party may be required to pay the prevailing party’s attorney fees.
CEA Factsheet, "There is No Tenure: The Facts about Teacher Employment in Colorado"
The system envisioned above is currently broken – you'll get no argument on that point here. CEA worked with the Governor (and, ironically, Senator Johnston) to create a Governor’s Council for Educator Effectiveness, which is charged with developing a working definition of teacher effectiveness, among many other things. They had met precisely twice before Senator Johnston introduced his punitive bill. Nowhere in SB 191 is an "effective teacher" defined, but it's quite detailed as to what happens if you aren't one. I guess I'm supposed to trust that every principal under which I serve, from now until the end of my career, will have a similar definition of what can be a pretty amorphous thing.
Senator Johnston's bill would strip teachers of protection against such Principals Gone Wild, which was first ensconced in our contracts to curtail incidences of principals firing teachers due to personal disagreements, petty fights, or political differences. These would return with a vengeance, exactly two years after the teachers' first post-Johnston Law evaluation, and "applying the lips thrice weekly upon the buttocks of the principal or the principal's designee" will become an unwritten but critical component of teacher job descriptions.
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY FINDS THAT, FOR THE FAIR EVALUATION OF A PRINCIPAL BASED ON THE DEMONSTRATED EFFECTIVENESS OF HIS OR HER TEACHERS, THE PRINCIPAL NEEDS THE ABILITY TO SELECT TEACHERS WHO SUPPORT THE INSTRUCTIONAL MODEL OF HIS OR HER SCHOOL. THEREFORE, EACH EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT EXECUTED PURSUANT TO THIS SECTION SHALL CONTAIN A PROVISION STATING THAT A TEACHER MAY BE ASSIGNED TO A PARTICULAR SCHOOL ONLY WITH THE CONSENT OF THE RECEIVING SCHOOL. IF THE TEACHER IS UNABLE TO SECURE AN ASSIGNMENT AT A SCHOOL OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT AFTER TWO HIRING CYCLES, THE SCHOOL DISTRICT SHALL PLACE THE TEACHER ON UNPAID LEAVE UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THE TEACHER IS ABLE TO SECURE AN ASSIGNMENT.
So, let's say a superintendent or principal wants to get rid of a mouthy union guy who's otherwise meeting whatever criteria the administration has set for competence. Normally, this would present a problem – since they have no real reason to fire the guy, they can't – but under the new order, all they have to do is re-allocate a little FTE. Since there's no seniority anymore, they get to pick and choose who gets "displaced," so the mouthy union guy has to go around, hat in hand, to the rest of the schools in the district, begging for a job. The blacklist (which, of course, "doesn't exist") precedes his visits at the speed of e-mail, and that's it: a competent, career teacher is out on his ass, for the crime of angering the principal.
no person shall be responsible for the evaluation of licensed personnel unless such THE person has a principal or administrator license issued pursuant to article 60.5 of this title OR IS A DESIGNEE OF A PERSON WITH A PRINCIPAL OR ADMINISTRATOR LICENSE and has received education and training in evaluation skills approved by the department of education
So not only can I be "evaluated" first out of my contractual rights as an employee and party to a collective bargaining agreement, then out of my job entirely, for reasons that need never be really spelled out – but it doesn't even have to be the principal who does it! He's got a PRINCIPAL'S LICENSE! – he can deputize whoever he wants! Bring on Willie the Groundskeeper, so long as Principal Skinner thinks he's a stand-up guy!
And then there's this one:
RECOMMENDATIONS DEVELOPED PURSUANT TO THIS SUBPARAGRAPH (I) SHALL REQUIRE THAT AT LEAST FIFTY PERCENT OF THE EVALUATION IS DETERMINED BY THE ACADEMIC GROWTH OF THE TEACHER'S STUDENTS
There's a lot that could be said here – many cyber-garments have been rent over this particular imposition of Johnston's Will – so I'll keep it short and sweet:
Show. Me. The. Research.
Senator Evie Hudak sent a letter to her fellow Dems, imploring them to listen to her perspective as a former teacher and former member of the state School Board. She addresses the specifics about what funding a meansure like this through Johnston's plan – seriously, he's planning on paying for SB 191 with "gifts, grants, and donations" – more succinctly than I ever could:
- It doesn't pay for interim assessments that the local districts will need to develop to assess student growth in every subject and at every grade level that we don't have CSAPs in. (By the way, the cost just for developing the new CSAPs and other summative assessments required by CAP4K has been estimated at between $80 million and $140 million.)
- It doesn't pay for tracking mechanisms that districts will need to develop in order to gather the data on which teachers are probationary, non-probationary, effective, ineffective, put back on probationary status, and put back on non-probationary status.
- It doesn't pay for the extra staff, such as assistant principals, that will be needed to cover the many tasks principals have besides evaluating teachers, such as dealing with discipline issues; much of principals' time will be taken up evaluating every teacher several times every year so as to determine their effectiveness. (By the way, my school district, Jeffco, is cutting assistant principals to save money.)
- It doesn't pay for the training principals will need to do the evaluations on the new effectiveness criteria. The Council has not yet made its recommendations for what the other half of effectiveness is – the half that's NOT test scores – but I promise you that if their recommendations are any good, those things won't be things you can determine by a 5-minute drop-in. And do you realize that principals turn over an average of every 3-5 years? That means the principal training will be all the more necessary.
- It doesn't pay for professional development to help the ineffective teachers improve – at least I assume that districts would try to avoid constantly hiring new teachers and instead help teachers who are familiar with their curriculum and programs regain effectiveness.
- It doesn't pay for the career ladders – we had an estimate in the Education Committee that these might cost as much as $40 million dollars.
Why I Voted NO on SB 191
"This Has All Happened Before; It Will All Happen Again" – Cylon proverb
It is my firm belief that if this bill passes, public education in Colorado will lie in ruins before this decade is out. It's not a question of unions wanting to maintain the status quo: it's a matter of being able to attract and retain quality teachers. I know a bunch of those, and there ain't many that would seek out a position in a state in which they could be fired on a whim, or see their paychecks pinned to a high-stakes test. We simply don't earn enough to be able to take those sorts of chances.
Neighboring states will likely be the biggest beneficiaries of SB 191, as hundreds of highly-trained, experienced teachers are rousted from their positions by principals suddenly able to act upon their various smoldering animosities. This has already happened at the local level – when Michael Johnston's old district effectively ran a beta-test on a lot of the ideas underpinning SB 191 as it staffed its new "small schools" in 2005, it was nearby districts that swooped in to feast on Mapleton's carcass. In the years between 2005 and 2007, schools from Fort Collins to Castle Rock hired dozens of outstanding teachers who were squeezed out of their once-secure jobs for reasons ranging from the insulting to the patently untrue. They were gotten on the cheap, even, since most districts only credit up to 5 years' worth of experience when placing a new hire on the salary schedule. It meant enormous cuts in pay for a lot of them, but at least they avoided an immediate future that involved a U-Haul.
With Senator Johnston's bill, this isn't likely to be the case – since teaching would be, in effect, an eternally temporary position across the state, there's no reason for a district to even bother hiring someone with a few years under their belt. Why pay more, when we're all the same product anyway? And why tolerate workers who advocate for better pay and working conditions (or even worse: help to organize other workers)? For that matter, why should a principal be obligated to work with someone he doesn't like?
Johnston's own school was set up exactly the way he wanted it – basically, he was operating under the same authority as his bill would grant. Thus, we can look to the Mapleton School District to provide a snapshot of what a post-SB 191 "reformed" school might look like: in 2007, the mid-point of Johnston's four-year career as a principal, the Mapleton Expeditionary School for the Arts had only 4 non-probationary teachers in a staff of more than 30, barely half of whom were teaching in fields related to their college degrees. Despite (or perhaps because of) the principal's ability to cherry-pick students as well as teachers, dropout rates were about the same as the traditional, comprehensive high school that MESA replaced. And let's not talk about the School Accountability Reports ...
I Know Whereof I Speak
I am passionate about these issues because they are close to me – I saw the Mapleton fiasco unfold up-close, and I know or have met many of the people involved. Those were my students whose educations were savaged by ill-conceived "reform," my friends and colleagues who were cast to the winds in the Great Mapleton Diaspora. It didn't need to happen, and sometimes I get this sinking feeling that if I'd taken a different course of action – been a little more acerbic, perhaps, and a little less accommodating of helping others reach their "visions" – this whole fetid timeline might never have existed.
That feeling hits me hardest when I read court histories like this:
[Superintendent Charlotte] Ciancio knew that to move this forward, all the key stakeholders must be on board, including the Mapleton Education Association. Ciancio and union leadership, who were a part of the change Process from the beginning, haggled over the terms, but eventually agreed to contract modifications that allowed for more flexibility in teacher's work time, and eliminated some job security measures—all teachers interviewed for positions at the new schools, those not selected were not guaranteed jobs.
High School Reform in Colorado, February, 2009
I remember the meeting where we "union leadership" gathered to discuss how to respond, after the District had informed us of the small schools hiring scheme they wanted to implement – the one outlined above (which sounds suspiciously like SB191, no?). We'd been "part of the process" only insofar that we bargained in good faith with a district team that didn't – that much, at least, became evident when they told us they wanted us to interview for jobs we'd held for years, sometimes decades. Loyalty to the institution and earnest desire to do right by the community were spat upon, disregarded – what mattered now was giving the new "small schools" Directors carte blanche to implement their respective "models."
Though I'm not generally one to raise my voice in meetings, this time I remember pounding my fist on the table, and saying loudly, "We must derail this process, now! Today!" We had been betrayed – the District's "offer" represented an abrogation of entire sections of our negotiated agreement, and if we didn't assert ourselves, they would have their way with us. I was certain of this, and I spoke like Cassandra about what the Greeks were going to do when we finally swung open the gates of Troy for them. I remember that the room fell silent for a long time, then the guy from the union, an old-school organizer for whom I have profound respect, asked me, "Well, what plan are we going to present?"
I had no answer, and he knew it. To me, it wasn't a question of providing an alternative solution; it was about slowing down and making sure we were doing things right. He was of the opinion that the teachers wouldn't (or shouldn't) strike, and though I differed with him on both counts, his word carried great weight, especially among those who were predisposed toward supporting the Superintendent's vision or those desperate to keep their jobs (a 20-year veteran who switches districts is looking at a +/-$40,000 cut in pay). I continued my objections, but with less and less force as it became apparent that most of the rest of the people in that crowded little office didn't want to go to war. In the end, I resigned myself to my fate and dusted off my resume.
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa
In that sense, I find myself partly culpable for the monstrosity that is Senate Bill 191. I threw in the towel, back when it was just an embryonic bad idea, and concerted action by just a few hundred people would have been enough to kill it. But no: I allowed the premise of the union guy's question to stand, and tried to base my argument on principle alone. The deal sucked, and everyone in the room knew it, but when it comes to leaps of faith, people tend to go with the one that at least promises a steady paycheck – especially when the other is based in part on the idea that we ought to strike on behalf of all the teachers in Colorado, to guard them from a terrible precedent being set. I knew how I sounded, even as I was speaking: maudlin sentiments about organized labor and standing up for what's right don't go nearly as far at the supermarket as forty thousand bucks.
Still, I wonder. Had I been a little more intransigent, had I pressed a little harder for a referendum by the membership, had I done...something differently, then maybe Superintendent Ciancio's vision-thing never would have rolled out in the authoritarian manner in which it did. The due process rights of teachers might have been honored, and MESA Director Johnston would never have been given his testing ground for the nuggets of guano that later bloomed into SB 191. The transition to "small schools" could have been slowed, and implemented with genuine, collaborative input from teachers and staff, and might have actually worked to improve the lives of Mapleton students. And if wishes were horses, we all might have rode.
But in the end, I stood silent, and did not step into the breach. I know now I should have – should have nailed my "obstructionist" colors to the mast and fought until I was hauled before the school board and summarily dismissed. Instead, I did what so many others –mouthy union types and older, more expensive, "set-in-their-ways" teachers alike – did after being squeezed out by the principal-centric hiring policies: I took a job in a neighboring district. (There's not much I can do about those who would discount my testimony as "sour grapes," except to say that it's not. I've made no secret of my dislike for the Senator, but that enmity doesn't rise from vengeance – I don't like any children of privilege who wave a silver spoon at the working man and tell him what's good for him, even those I haven't met. Precisely because I didn't want to be "that guy," lurking at the fringes and sniping at people I'd once worked beside, I parted ways with my old district as thoroughly as if I'd moved to the other side of the world, and for three years afterwards, I made no public utterances about Mapleton schools. Without getting into too many details about my new job, suffice to say that I landed on my feet; the outrage reflected in my article last week stems from seeing this all play out a second, statewide time, not out of any sense of having been denied the opportunity to prove myself to the Senator's satisfaction.)
Figuring that if I didn't have anything nice to say, I shouldn't say anything, I kept my tongue regarding the Mapleton reform fiasco until June, 2008. Candidate Barack Obama had just given a laudatory speech praising Director Johnston for a 100% college admittance rate – an achievement that reflects well on the graduating seniors, but is a little less lustrous when one realizes that Johnston had simply purchased a pre-packaged curriculum that expressly promises exactly – and only – the result he desired:
Rising college enrollment rates are hard data that administrators can use to demonstrate what they are doing right for their students. Providing each and every student with what he or she needs to get to college ensures that all students' potential can be realized.
Note the lack of mention of raising test scores or student preparedness for higher ed. They'll provide "what he or she needs to get to college" – and stuff for districts to brag about – but success once the kid is there isn't really College Summit's problem. It's a grave disservice, and to see it used to justify Mapletonian-style reforms on a national scale frankly scared the beejeebus out of me.
I recognized the scam and tried to raise the alarm: Part 1 described how a debilitating series of "reform" initiatives were conjured up and justified; Part 2 dealt with the union-busting and the heavy-handed imposition of the whole reform regime. But alas, that was back in the days when any cautionary words about Candidate Obama's potential education policy choices were easily smothered in the pro-Hope & Change adulation of a less-than-vigilant press. In November of the same year, I re-published an edited, crammed-together version of the two earlier pieces under the title An Educator Hears A Dog Whistle in the Obamamercial, but most of the comments complained about the length (okay, probably justifiably) and didn't address the main thesis: that it would be a bad thing if Michael Johnston or any of the rest of the Axis of Eval to be appointed to an Obama Education Department.
Historiorant
So, Colorado educators, I apologize. Like the guy who could have shot Hitler, compassion, war-weariness, and a desire for the success of others stayed my hand (note to the allusion-challenged: I'm not calling Senator Johnston "Hitler" or any derivation thereof – just noting that doing the right thing at the wrong time can have seriously unintended consequences). I wouldn't have been a good fit in the "small schools" anyway, so I went elsewhere and kept my mouth shut.
Not this time. This time, it all goes out to the barricades. This time, there won't be any dry powder held in reserve "for the next fight.," because if we lose this one, all the fights to come (at least, up until the point that the failed Johnstonian reforms are cast lock, stock, and barrel upon the slap heap of history) are a foregone conclusion. Allowing the premise behind Senator Johnston's bill to stand is the real danger here, since it would begin to codify into statute the idea that teaching is something that can be reduced to a Perfect Test – something the people behind SB 191 would know, if the had a little more experience.
This is why the timelines contained within the bill are so tight – if a Governor-appointed board fails to create a comprehensive evaluation system for all teachers in all of Colorado by December 31, the task will be handed over to a Star Chamber in the state Department of Education, where the bureaucrats are far more malleable than the angry teachers whose careers will be destroyed by a plague of Principals Gone Wild. Senator Johnston realizes that the more people read this bill, the more they oppose it, and that outside of the general concept of teacher evaluations needing reform, there is nothing salvageable about this piece of legislation, nothing worth compromising over. By introducing it at all, Johnston has declared war upon educators throughout the state; by introducing it with only days remaining in the legislative session, he shows that he intends to jam a treaty down our throats without regard to right, wrong, students, or effectiveness. It's all about power and authority.
Passage of SB 10-191 will severely damage the education of an entire generation of Coloradoans, and there may be no recovering from its effects. This is quite possibly the ultimate intent – Senator Johnston and his crew are not all averse to charter schools and other privatization efforts, and we've seen how they plot and scheme several moves in advance, so creating the circumstances which cause public education to implode under the weight of unfunded mandates and high-stakes testing could well work to their advantage. In another decade, perhaps it'll be Lieutenant Governor Johnston who decries the failed teacher evaluation "system" he himself initiated (but has conveniently forgotten about), and calls for a new form of radical restructuring: the turning over of every public school in the state to private corporations who promise to install a New Leaders-trained principal and a staff of script-reading temporary volunteers in each and every one.
Coloradoans! Please contact your House Member and tell him or her to vote NO!!! on this execrable bill! Please!