By Cynthia G. Brown, Robin Chait

Center for American Progress

October 1, 2007

Recent research has demonstrated what we all know—great teachers are critical to high levels of student achievement, particularly for low-income and minority students. Yet today poor and minority children are least likely to get our best teachers.

Congress is considering proposals for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that would provide federal incentives to reform the teacher compensation systems in high poverty schools.

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller has spent his career fighting to improve the quality of America’s teaching force—and, at the same time, to protect the rights of American workers to join a union. As part of his plan to fix Title II of the No Child Left Behind Act, he and Ranking Committee Member Howard McKeon have proposed a grant program for school districts that pay more to the highest-performing teachers who commit to stay in the highest-need schools for at least four years.

This is an important initiative that deserves support on both sides of the aisle—especially from progressives who believe in strengthening public education for low-income students.
Unfortunately, critics of the proposal have been spreading misleading information that has obscured the facts. Let’s take a look at some of their claims.

CLAIM: The federal government, through this proposal, would mandate the use of test scores to evaluate teachers.

FACT: The new proposal for Title II, Part A does not mandate the use of test scores to evaluate teachers. It is a voluntary grant program in which states and districts can choose whether or not to participate. If they choose to participate, growth in student achievement, rather than absolute student achievement, is used as one measure for evaluating teachers. Consequently, teachers aren’t penalized for teaching low-performing students. And test scores are not the sole measure used to evaluate teachers—classroom evaluations conducted by multiple professional educators must be used as well.

CLAIM: Teacher compensation is a matter of collective bargaining subject to state and local law and not federal law.

FACT: The proposed Title II provides protections for collective bargaining—it does not override it. Employment contracts are negotiated and agreed to at the local level and are subject to state law.

CLAIM: Decisions about how to evaluate teachers should be made at the local, not federal level.

FACT: The Title II proposal requires districts to design their own evaluation programs working in collaboration with teachers. While the programs are subject to some general guidelines, most of the decisions about how teachers are evaluated will be made at the local level.

Moreover, the federal role in education is and should be about addressing issues of educational equity and ensuring that students in high-poverty schools receive a high-quality education. Performance pay is one tool districts can use to attract outstanding teachers to high-poverty schools. Many districts will welcome this federal support.

CLAIM: Performance pay programs are premature because methods to determine the value that individual teachers add to student learning haven’t been thoroughly researched and evaluated.

FACT: Performance pay is still a new idea, but the record from recent research and experiments around the country is encouraging. Recent summaries of research on performance pay programs demonstrate that these programs have positive effects on student achievement.[i] An evaluation of 130 schools participating in the Teacher Advancement Project, a comprehensive professional pay system that includes pay for successful performance, found that these schools are now getting better results than similar schools.[ii] Programs developed in consultation with teachers in Denver and Minnesota are also proving effective and popular among teachers.

Until we find a better way to attract and retain great teachers in our highest-poverty schools, we need to keep trying promising reforms, including performance pay.

CLAIM: Attention and resources are better spent on reforming the whole school, improving working conditions for teachers, and providing professional development.

FACT The proposed Title II does provide funding for professional development. Part B is a large formula grant program for states that support professional development activities in the neediest schools. Moreover, districts that participate in the Part A performance pay program are also required to improve working conditions for teachers. Title I of NCLB provides significant funding for whole school improvement.

CLAIM: Performance pay programs will spark unhelpful competition among teachers and create a disincentive for them to collaborate and share information.

FACT: Research has found that performance pay programs do not create negative, competitive environments if the programs are designed appropriately and with teacher input. Moreover, nothing in the performance pay provisions in the Title II proposal stops districts from providing awards to all teachers at schools that show gains, not just to individual teachers. As we know from endeavors ranging from military service to athletics, commitment to the team and recognition of individual excellence are perfectly compatible.

October 30, 2007

Why They Called It the Manhattan Project

By WILLIAM J. BROAD

By nature, code names and cover stories are meant to give no indication of the secrets concealed. “Magic” was the name for intelligence gleaned from Japanese ciphers in World War II, and “Overlord” stood for the Allied plan to invade Europe.

Many people assume that the same holds true for the Manhattan Project, in which thousands of experts gathered in the mountains of New Mexico to make the world’s first atom bomb.
Robert S. Norris, a historian of the atomic age, wants to shatter that myth.

In “The Manhattan Project” (Black Dog & Leventhal), published last month, Dr. Norris writes about the Manhattan Project’s Manhattan locations. He says the borough had at least 10 sites, all but one still standing. They include warehouses that held uranium, laboratories that split the atom, and the project’s first headquarters — a skyscraper hidden in plain sight right across from City Hall.

“It was supersecret,” Dr. Norris said in an interview. “At least 5,000 people were coming and going to work, knowing only enough to get the job done.”

Manhattan was central, according to Dr. Norris, because it had everything: lots of military units, piers for the import of precious ores, top physicists who had fled Europe and ranks of workers eager to aid the war effort. It even had spies who managed to steal some of the project’s top secrets.

“The story is so rich,” Dr. Norris enthused. “There’s layer upon layer of good stuff, interesting characters.”

Still, more than six decades after the project’s start, the Manhattan side of the atom bomb story seems to be a well-preserved secret.

Dr. Norris recently visited Manhattan at the request of The New York Times for a daylong tour of the Manhattan Project’s roots. Only one site he visited displayed a public sign noting its role in the epochal events. And most people who encountered his entourage, which included a photographer and videographer, knew little or nothing of the atomic labors in Manhattan.

“That’s amazing,” Alexandra Ghitelman said after learning that the buildings she had just passed on inline skates once held tons of uranium destined for atomic weapons. “That’s unbelievable.”

While shock tended to be the main reaction, some people hinted at feelings of pride. More than one person said they knew someone who had worked on the secret project, which formally got under way in August 1942 and three years later culminated in the atomic bombing of Japan. In all, it employed more than 130,000 people.

Dr. Norris is also the author of “Racing for the Bomb” (Steerforth, 2002), a biography of Gen. Leslie R. Groves, the project’s military leader. As his protagonist had done during the war, Dr. Norris works in Washington. At the Natural Resources Defense Council, he studies and writes about the nation’s atomic facilities.

Dr. Norris began his day of exploration by taking the train to New York from Washington, coming into Pennsylvania Station just as General Groves had done dozens of times during the war to visit project sites.

“Groves didn’t want the job,” Dr. Norris remarked outside the station. “But his foot hit the accelerator and he didn’t let up for 1,000 days.”

For tour assistance, Dr. Norris brought along his own books as well as printouts from “The Traveler’s Guide to Nuclear Weapons,” a CD by James M. Maroncelli and Timothy L. Karpin that features little-known history of the nation’s atom endeavors.

We headed north to the childhood home of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the eccentric genius whom General Groves hired to run the project’s scientific side as well as its sprawling New Mexico laboratory. Last year, a biography of Oppenheimer, “American Prometheus” (Knopf, 2005), won the Pulitzer Prize.

“One of the most famous scientists of the 20th century,” Dr. Norris noted, got his start “walking these streets” and attending the nearby Ethical Culture School.

Oppenheimer and his parents lived at 155 Riverside Drive, an elegant apartment building at West 88th Street. The superintendent, Joe Gugulski, said the family lived on the 11th floor, overlooking the Hudson River.

“One of my tenants read the book,” Mr. Gugulski told us. “So I looked it up.” To his knowledge, Mr. Gugulski added, no other atomic tourists had visited the building.

The Oppenheimers decorated their apartment with original artwork by Picasso, Rembrandt, Renoir, Van Gogh and Cézanne, according to “American Prometheus.” His mother encouraged young Robert to paint.

By the late 1930s and early 1940s, blocks away at Columbia University, scientists were laboring to split the atom and release its titanic energies. We made our way across campus — with difficulty because of protests over the visit of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, which is widely suspected of harboring its own bomb program.

Dr. Norris noted that the Manhattan Project led to “many of our problems today.”

The Pupin Physics Laboratories housed the early atom experiments, Dr. Norris said. But the tall building, topped by observatory domes, has no plaque in its foyer describing its nuclear ties.

Passing students and pedestrians answered “no” and “kind of” when asked if they knew of the atom breakthroughs at Pupin Hall. Dr. Norris said the Manhattan Project, at its peak, employed 700 people at Columbia. At one point, the football team was recruited to move tons of uranium. That work, he said, eventually led to the world’s first nuclear reactor.

After lunch, we headed to West 20th Street just off the West Side Highway. The block, on the fringe of Chelsea, bristled with new galleries, and Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. On its north side, three tall buildings once made up the Baker and Williams Warehouses, which held tons of uranium.

Two women taking a cigarette break said they had no idea of their building’s atomic past. “It’s horrible,” said one.

Dr. Norris’s “Traveler’s Guide” fact sheet said the federal government in the late 1980s and early 1990s cleaned the buildings of residual uranium. Workers removed more than a dozen drums of radioactive waste, according to the Department of Energy in Washington. “Radiological surveys show that the site now meets applicable requirements for unrestricted use,” a federal document said in 1995.

We moved to Manhattan’s southern tip and worked our way up Broadway along the route known as the Canyon of Heroes, the scene of many ticker-tape parades amid the skyscrapers.
At 25 Broadway, we visited a minor but important site — the Cunard Building. Edgar Sengier, a Belgian with an office here, had his company mine about 1,200 tons of high-grade uranium ore and store it on Staten Island in the shadow of the Bayonne Bridge. Though a civilian, he knew of the atomic possibilities and feared the invading Germans might confiscate his mines.

Dr. Norris said General Groves, on his first day in charge, sent an assistant to buy all that uranium for a dollar a pound — or $2.5 million. “The Manhattan Project was off to a flying start,” he said, adding that the Belgian entrepreneur in time supplied two-thirds of all the project’s uranium.

We walked past St. Paul’s Chapel and proceeded to the soaring grandeur of the Woolworth Building, once the world’s tallest, at 233 Broadway.

A major site, it housed a front company that devised one of the project’s main ways of concentrating uranium’s rare isotope — a secret of bomb making. On the 11th, 12th and 14th floors, the company drew on the nation’s scientific best and brightest, including teams from Columbia.

Dr. Norris said the front company’s 3,700 employees included Klaus Fuchs, a Soviet spy. “He was a substantial physicist in his own right,” Dr. Norris said. “He contributed to the American atom bomb, the Soviet atom bomb and the British atom bomb.”

So how did the Manhattan Project get its name, and why was Manhattan chosen as its first headquarters?

Dr. Norris said the answer lay at our next stop, 270 Broadway. There, at Chambers Street, on the southwest corner, we found a nondescript building overlooking City Hall Park.

It was here, Dr. Norris said, that the Army Corps of Engineers had its North Atlantic Division, which built ports and airfields. When the Corps got the responsibility of making the atom bomb, it put the headquarters in the same building, on the 18th floor.

“That way he didn’t need to reinvent the wheel,” Dr. Norris said of General Groves. “He used what he had at his fingertips — the entire Corps of Engineers infrastructure.”

Dr. Norris added that the Corps at that time included “extraordinary people, the best and brightest of West Point.”

In time, the office at 270 Broadway ran not only atom research and materials acquisition but also the building of whole nuclear cities in Tennessee, New Mexico and Washington State.
The first proposed name for the project, Dr. Norris said, was the Laboratory for the Development of Substitute Materials. But General Groves feared that would draw undo attention.
Instead, General Groves called for the bureaucratically dull approach of adopting the standard Corps procedure for naming new regional organizations. That method simply noted the unit’s geographical area, as in the Pittsburgh Engineer District.

So the top-secret endeavor to build the atom bomb got the most boring of cover names: the Manhattan Engineer District, in time shortened to the Manhattan Project. Unlike other Corps districts, however, it had no territorial limits. “He was nuts about not attracting attention,” Dr. Norris said.

Manhattan’s role shrank as secretive outposts for the endeavor sprouted across the country and quickly grew into major enterprises. By the late summer of 1943, little more than a year after its establishment, the headquarters of the Manhattan Project moved to Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Despite this dispersal, Dr. Norris said, scientists and businesses in Manhattan, including The New York Times, continued to aid the atomic project.

In April 1945, General Groves traveled to the newspaper’s offices on West 43rd Street. He asked that a science writer, William L. Laurence, be allowed to go on leave to report on a major wartime story involving science.

As early as 1940, before wartime secrecy, Mr. Laurence had reported on the atomic breakthroughs at Pupin Hall.

Now, Dr. Norris said, Mr. Laurence went to work for the Manhattan Project and became the only reporter to witness the Trinity test in the New Mexican desert in July 1945, and, shortly thereafter, the nuclear bombing of Japan.

The atomic age, Mr. Laurence wrote in the first article of a series, began in the New Mexico desert before dawn in a burst of flame that illuminated “earth and sky for a brief span that seemed eternal.”

In Manhattan, the one location that has memorialized its atomic connection had nothing to do with making or witnessing the bomb, but rather with managing to survive its fury.

The spot is on Riverside Drive between 105th and 106th Streets. There, in a residential neighborhood, in front of the New York Buddhist Church, is a tall statue of a Japanese Buddhist monk, Shinran Shonin, who lived in the 12th and 13th centuries. In peasant hat and sandals, holding a wooden staff, the saint peers down on the sidewalk.

The statue survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, standing a little more than a mile from ground zero. It was brought to New York in 1955. The plaque calls the statue “a testimonial to the atomic bomb devastation and a symbol of lasting hope for world peace.”

The statue stands a few blocks from Columbia University, where much of the bomb program began.

“I wonder how many New Yorkers know about it,” Dr. Norris said of the statue, “and know the history.”

Teacher Magazine

Grammar Interrupted

By Cindi Rigsbee

I worry about the English language. Thanks to new advances in technology, the impact of pop culture, and the increasing focus on tested areas of our curriculum, the Queen’s English is in more trouble than ever before. Until someone develops a high-stakes test on the use of the past participle, will anyone really be interested in how well our students are writing and speaking?

First, let's talk about technology. Spellcheck has clearly made the world lazy. Students think they don’t need to learn the rules of spelling and grammar because one click will do it for them.

These same students (and my own children) are addicted to Instant Messaging. My son, who in high school struggled with attention issues in the classroom, could sit at his computer desk at night and carry on 16 simultaneous conversations. Those conversations did not include correctly spelled words or any attempt at punctuation; in fact, IM-speak is actually meant to be incorrect, just so long as it’s fast! For an example, check out this excerpt from a MySpace page that belongs to a student at my school:

"wut it do i ain't talked 2 u n a minute ever since da last day of skool fo christmas break wut been ^ 2 me nuttin jus sittin @ home ain't gone nuttin 2 do........well i wuz jus stoppin by 2 sho ur page sum luvin get baq @ me when u can"

Enough said on that subject.

Pop culture plays a part in the slow, painful torture of correct English in another way, too. Songs on the radio reinforce incorrect usage of grammar (and have for years). Take this oldie from the 80's:

"I feel the magic between you and I" (from Eric Carmen's "Hungry Eyes" on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack).

I ask you, would the songwriter say, "Give it to I, baby!"?

In "Brick House," The Commodores sang, “Ain’t nothing wrong with dat.” This usage of non-standard English for emphasis is actually less offensive. Eric Carmen's use of “I” as an object of the preposition is an ill-fated attempt to sound formal, which adds pretentiousness to the list of crimes committed here.

And don’t get me started on Pink Floyd’s “We Don’t Need No Education.” Ugh. Who says?

Nostalgia for Diagramming

In addition, there has been an enormous shift in our schools in the way they teach—or don’t teach—grammar. We feel those tests looming, hanging in the air over us, gray clouds of reality waiting to descend in mid-May. My students have heard the morning announcements: “There are 165 days left until the end-of-grade test.” (Would the students tell on me if I attacked the intercom speaker with my yardstick?) Focusing on tested areas of the curriculum has often resulted in teachers being forced to give up instruction they love, including the fine points of English grammar.

I remember teaching diagramming. Sentence diagrams were the granddaddy of graphic organizers. I took pride in drawing those precise lines and knowing exactly where to place the indirect object. They were like perfect puzzles, and those of us who mastered them felt like we had just figured out how to do calculus to the third derivative (I don’t even know what I just said).

Not only did I teach diagramming, I taught parts of speech and had students do random, isolated sentences. I did realize that those exercises never seemed to transfer to a student's casual writing and speaking. Just because students could identify pronouns in a sentence didn’t mean they stopped saying, “Me and her need to go to the bathroom.” But we had to start somewhere! Nowadays, however, there is little room in the curriculum for such time-intensive instruction.

The Art of the Mini-Lesson

So what do we do? Sit back and watch our language continue to deteriorate? I, for one, refuse to go down without a fight. Here’s how I’ve changed my teaching:

First of all, I teach short mini-lessons on grammar. Nancie Atwell (In the Middle), Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell (Guiding Readers and Writers), and Lucy Calkins (The Art of Teaching Writing) have touted the mini-lesson for years. It's a short lesson focused on a specific principle or procedure. And for me, it works wonders for those irritating grammatical problems.

So, I'll play a bit of "Hungry Eyes," then say, “Class, why is it improper to say, ‘between you and I?’ How do we usually use the pronoun ‘I’?” I have the students provide a couple of sentences for the overhead, and we have a grand musically enhanced discussion!

On another day, I might ask the students to explain the different ways we speak to one another. I hope they’ll tell me that we speak more informally with our friends—the mode Ruby Payne (in A Framework for Understanding Poverty) calls “casual register.” I explain that we write that way, too, on our MySpace pages and in our text messages. However, formal writing calls for adhering to the conventions—“Remember that discussion we had about pronouns?”

And last, I hit ‘em where they live. I pull out examples of those MySpace pages and ask students to write them over in standard English. I tell them, “This is not art. No symbols – I want words!” Most of the time, they rise to the expectations that are placed on them.

Oh, and one more thing: I challenge them to represent themselves as being intelligent writers and speakers. With luck, one of them will grow up to write the songs. And I won't have to struggle to keep my car on the road when I listen to the radio.

Cindi Rigsbee is a National Board-certified middle grades teacher in Durham, N.C., and a former North Carolina regional teacher of the year. She was a finalist for the Terry Sanford Award for Creativity and Innovation in Teaching.

Plagiarism

Lauren McCabe writes:

As I sat at the airport last weekend, grading my students’ summer reading essays and waiting to take off, I was angry. Not because of the tardiness of my flight, but because I was looking at 15 plagiarized essays from my seniors, seniors who knew better. They had all summer to read a book and write this five-paragraph essay on any topic they wanted. After I read over two essays and saw the exact same words, sentences and paragraphs, it wasn't hard to figure out that these papers had been copied.

After talking with some of my colleagues over the weekend, I learned that plagiarism wasn’t a new concept at my school, Environmental Charter High School, and that most of the students on my list had turned in plagiarized work in the past. I began to wonder why students plagiarize. Could it really be that they were just too lazy to write their own papers? And the essay they turned in and tried to pass as their own was of very low quality. Didn’t they have respect for themselves and their abilities?

While I was venting my frustration to an administrator at my school, he offered a bit of insight into the community I teach in and he grew up in. He explained that the major battle these students are fighting every day does not necessarily come from an external source, but from within. The inferiority complex is a constant war within our students. They “dumbed down” their essays to a level so far below their actual writing abilities because they thought it would be more believable to me that way. They ran away from this challenge because they didn’t believe they could achieve on their own.

This is not to say “poor babies” or to give excuses for blatant plagiarism, but I think it is important to understand the mindsets with which our students walk into the classroom every day and ways by which we can expand those views. Pure laziness is only one possibility of many for explaining why students plagiarize, as is the inferiority complex. But until we consider all of the possibilities and stop labeling students, we will never solve the issue. Malleable intelligence, the concept of intelligence not being fixed, will be the first topic of discussion that I start off with in my next class.

This is simply immaturity, laziness and seeing if they could get away with it....
Here is what I do...I don't make a big deal about it. I just put a 0 on their papers and write, " Same as Julie's paper; 0 same as David's paper" I don't moralize, I don't lecture, I don't call their parents. It takes me 10 seconds to write it on the paper. I usually never have a plagiarism issue again.

I'm sure you gave your students the option to contact you should they run into difficulty and provided an email or phone number, so there really are no excuses for the plagiarism.

Again, in high school ,students must pass a class to move on to the next grade level , not like in middle school, which is another reason they are turning in poor quality work.

One practical thing you can do and you may already be doing this for students who have trouble structuring an essay is to write out five to seven sample topic sentences for each essay: The background sentence, thesis sentence and 3 to 5 supporting topic sentences and a concluding sentences and have them "build" the essay. This way they have a template to begin using. Santa Monica High School has a website with a paper called the "Sweet Sixteens of Good Writing" It is a helpful handout with sixteen boxes that offer tips on good writing.

Another hint, don't leave the topic wide open but give them five or six options. They still have choice but also have something concrete about which to write. Did you connect the essay to the book they were reading? This way they have to read the book to write about it in the essay.

Great job giving a summer assigment as you are way ahead of the game in knowing a little about each student and their work ethic. It also gives you information that allows you to adjust and correct what you want in your upcoming reading and essay assignments which puts you way ahead of the game. Keep it up!

Posted by: evelyn

Posted by: Anonymous

This is not your fault. It is a break down in the system. This is learned behavior that has most likely happened in the past without consequence.

In any serious academic institution, plagiarism is a serious offense. I hear you saying that the administrator, in sentiment, excused the behavior. Why didn't the administrator offer to come to your class and deal with this problem so you can focus your mind and energy on curricular and instructional issues?

I don't want to be too cynical, but I can guess at the answer. First, the system emphasizes attendance and seat time. Any serious discipline must have the possibility of suspension as its ultimate consequence. Administrators hate suspensions because it takes away from attendance and makes the school's discipline statistics look bad.

I like the advice of evelyn. Don't moralize on the issue, but absolutely don't accept plagiarism. The students will figure it out for themselves. You can focus on being the best English teacher you can be, and model professionalism to the students. Too many teachers stray the academic path in an attempt to be life coaches.

Posted by: David

The pattern of plagiarism that I've heard about is that in this internet age, the kids often have really bad process for their writing. So, you'll see a lone plagiarized sentence in a single paragraph, or you'll find that the student's work is a strange hybrid of original and plagiarized work, even when hunting down the material to plagiarize and weaving it into a coherent text must actually have been more work. They need extremely explicit instruction in how to write and how to include citations. You might want to explain to them that using citations impresses the teacher, because it demonstrates that you've done a lot of research.

Posted by: Amy P

Teachers union gets wiggle room against rival

By Michael J. Mishak

Las Vegas Sun

The Nevada State Education Association's push to boost taxes on gaming offers the union an advantage on another front. The tax plan provides leverage as the association tries to fend off a rival union.

The education association is locked in a struggle with Teamsters Local 14, which is campaigning to represent Clark County teachers. To win, the Teamsters must persuade more than half of those teachers to oust the education association as their representative.

But the association has painted the Teamsters into something of a corner by asking voters to boost the gaming tax so the state could grant teachers a raise.

The Teamsters local and two of its sister locals have workers spread throughout the gaming industry. The union is likely to oppose the higher taxes, which would leave it working to defeat a statewide ballot initiative whose purpose is to help teachers.

The Teamsters said Wednesday they will continue their organizing campaign and predicted the education association would fail to raise gaming taxes.

The association needs to secure nearly 60,000 signatures to place an initiative on the statewide ballot in 2008. If it's approved, voters would need to pass it again in 2010. The association seeks to bump the tax on gaming revenue from 6.75 percent to 9.75 percent.

The association's proposal is the latest in a series of hurdles facing the Teamsters local. From the outset, the union faced the challenge of organizing a largely apathetic and transient membership. Fifty percent of Clark County's teachers typically leave within five years. Also working against the Teamsters is the absence of a record of ever representing public educators.

The Teamsters originally expected their organizing drive would last through most of 2008. But the education association and Teamsters recently agreed to shrink the timeline. The campaign is now expected to conclude by the end of next month.

To be sure, the teachers union has weaknesses, and the Teamsters clearly see an opening. Members are frustrated by years of small raises and saw their union as largely ineffectual in this year's legislative session.

Education lobbyists made the mistake of going around Assembly Democrats to cut a deal with Senate Republicans on education funding. The move irritated the teachers' natural allies and could mean less clout with Assembly Democrats in future Legislatures - not a comforting thought.

The Teamsters say the education association's leadership is now lashing out at the most powerful interest in Nevada - the gaming industry - to deflect attention from its failures.

Ron Taylor, a district teacher who launched a grass-roots effort to decertify the education association and now works for Teamsters Local 14, said the tax proposal was a direct response to the Teamsters organizing effort, which he said is picking up steam.

"It's obvious this action was done because of us," Taylor said. "The NSEA is trying to protect their cash cow - the Clark County Education Association. They have no shot, but this is a way to tell teachers, 'We're fighting for you.' It's transparent."

The state education association represents more than 18,000 teachers across Nevada, including about 13,000 in Clark County.

The Teamsters say they have collected more than 2,000 signed authorization cards. The union needs 7,500 cards by the end of November to make the case for an election, which, if sanctioned by the state labor board, could take place next spring, said Gary Mauger, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 14.

As for the teachers union tax plan, Mauger said he would consult with the Teamsters executive board and the Nevada AFL-CIO before rendering judgment. Still, he added, "Going and putting the burden on the hand that feeds you sometimes doesn't make for a good way to go."

Richard Hurd, a labor expert at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said the gaming tax proposal could galvanize the teachers union, slowing - if not killing - the Teamsters' momentum.

"It could be that what the education association is doing now is attempting to demonstrate that they have the potential to deliver," Hurd said.

Terry Hickman , the education association's executive director, said the union's plan was purely a response to a state that chronically underfunds education. Nevada ranks 49th in the nation in education spending.

"It's not enough to complain," Hickman said. "If you are not solution-based, get out of the way. Any association that opposes funding for our kids, I wonder what their values are."
And yet, the teachers union is going it alone.

Danny Thompson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Nevada AFL-CIO, said the 200,000-strong labor federation would vote on the teachers' tax plan, but he said support was unlikely. The AFL-CIO supports the Teamsters organizing effort.

"We support broadening the tax base away from one industry," Thompson said. "If you raise the gaming tax without raising others' taxes, you increase your dependency even more."

by Chip Mosher

Las Vegas City Life

October 11, 2007

THE TEACHER WAS ON THE PHONE asking a simple question. What happened to his arbitration hearing regarding the issue of a rogue administrator severely punishing him for doing the right thing? On the other end of the line, a Clark County Education Association (teachers' faux union) representative, Steven Horner, confessed confusion as to why, after nearly four years, the arbitration hadn't been held, since the average turnaround time to conduct such an independent hearing was 12 to 18 months. He said he'd find the problem and promised to call the teacher back with his case's status.

The teacher never heard back from Horner. Following multiple failed attempts to contact him again by phone and e-mail, the teacher finally gave up in a despair common to teachers who've had to rely on their faux union for such amateurish support in labor disputes.

Months later, the teacher ran into the evasive Horner at a picnic and, because they'd never met, introduced himself. The conversation went something like this:

"Yes, I know who you are," said Horner.

"Why didn't you call me back, as you promised to, about my arbitration that simply vanished into thin air?" asked the teacher.

"Because my boss told me not to contact you. I was just following orders," he answered.

"Like the Nazis?" the teacher said.

"Hey. Even you teachers have to bend over for your jobs on occasion, too," explained Horner.

"Only because teachers have been stuck with the Clark County Education Association to represent them against the school district," the teacher replied.

With that, Horner turned and walked away. How do I know this? Because I was the teacher.

That was last spring. This past week Horner's name popped up again at a local school. Recently, much to the amazement of many veteran teachers, their faux union is surprisingly showing up on campuses, trying to improve its decade-long image as an absentee, ineffective union. Sadly, though, this is not to fix its chronic incompetence, but rather the union is suddenly erecting a false front of concern for teachers -- in order to counter Teamsters Local Union 14, which also is vying for the right to represent the valley's teachers.

As part of the faux union's propaganda push, Horner was scheduled to appear at a school where, for teachers, he was a no-show. Exhausted teachers waited for him long after the school day ended. They had questions. Serious questions. Yet he didn't arrive. In his defense, Horner has said he came to the school's cafeteria, but didn't know exactly where to go for the meeting. After going to the main office, he apparently didn't possess the mental acuity to phone or page his female contact at the school, about where the meeting was. It was in her room, where the tired teachers were waiting, seemingly for Godot. Or, for a union to finally represent their interests.

And Horner's explanation?

"I did arrive at 2:05 and tried to check in no one [sic] was at the front desk however [sic] the AP [assistant principal's] secretary gave me directions, [sic] I will gladly reschedule at your convenience" [sic], Horner wrote to an unhappy teacher.

Note the shaky grammar.

Last year another teacher, being brutally terminated by the district, had been represented by Horner. Although she'd had many years of excellent evaluations in the L.A. Unified School District, this was her probationary year teaching in Clark County. Here, according to her, she'd been railroaded by a mean-spirited, vindictive principal -- a common occurrence in the district. Her contention was supported by several colleagues.

"I have called numerous times and I have not received any response to my inquiries regarding my termination. I am requesting a phone call from my union representative," she e-mailed Horner.

Days later, Horner e-mailed back: "As i told at our last meeting once the letter of non-renewal is issued then I turn over the documents to the lawyers. They will handle the the issues"

Again, note the grammar. This, from a man who represents teachers against district lawyers in disciplinary hearings.

The unlucky teacher, now gone from the district, responded to Horner: "That's the point. There have been no additional meetings, nor have you responded to my phone calls since the notice of my non-renewal."

Unfortunately, the elusive Steven Horner typifies the representation too many teachers get from their faux union, the Clark County Education Association. Sad to say.

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher and faux union member.

by Chip Mosher

Las Vegas City Life

October 4, 2007

DEAR READER, I wanted to avoid the banality of school district issues this week by writing about the passing of French mime Marcel Marceau, and dead Buddhist monks on the streets of Myanmar. By writing about the death of such beautiful silence and, again, about the death of such beautiful silence. But not to be. C'est la vie.

Instead, I made the mistake of viewing local journalist Jon Ralston's gripping TV show Face To Face, which this past week featured leaders of two unions vying to represent teachers' interests in Las Vegas. Mary Ella Holloway, president of the Clark County Education Association -- teachers' current faux union -- verbally squared off against teacher Ron Taylor, a spokesperson for Teamsters Local Union 14.

The program started out predictably enough, each participant rhetorically jabbing and parrying politely, with both scoring minor points. Until halfway through the all-too-short 15-minute debate -- when Holloway, attempting to forensically sucker-punch Taylor, blurted out a doozy.

"We have access to his files," said Holloway, sounding and looking like J. Edgar Hoover in drag, while trying to discredit Taylor, a former member of her union.

Preceding and provoking this incendiary comment, the pit-bull-like host Ralston quoted, from an old news report, the executive director of the teachers' faux union, John Jasonek, who'd disparagingly said that Taylor had worked at five different local schools. But Taylor, a sought-after computer expert, responded -- honestly, it seemed -- that it was really six schools, in 15 years, where he was recruited by principals for his expertise.

On a video news clip, the faux union's Executive Director Jasonek, to trash Taylor, said: "Instead of being some righteous effort to make change from within, his [Taylor's] goal was to land a job with the Teamsters."

It's an odd statement from the top man at the teachers' faux union. Why? Because, according to inside sources, Jasonek led an effort last year to successfully oust Ron Taylor from this union, due to Taylor's efforts to create change inside the union -- the one which provides the bread and butter of Jasonek's documented personal financial affluence.

Following this insightful news clip, the debate took a turn toward the heart of the matter facing local teachers. This was the dialogue:

Ralston: You're just trying to hurt his (Taylor's) credibility, aren't you?

Holloway: We have access to his files -- but we can't talk about it.

Taylor: You have access to my files? You have access to my personnel files?

Holloway: No, no, no. The ones that are-- I-- I-- when CCEA--

Ralston: You see why he's so upset, if you have access to his personnel files? And it's said the school district is in bed with you--

Holloway: Please. Please. Please, Jon. It's not the personnel files. It's the files we have at CCEA when we do business with our-- with our people.

Ralston: That would have nothing to do with whether he's recruited by the principal of one of these schools or not.

Holloway: I think it would tell why he's changed schools so many times.

Whoops. After admitting she had access to Taylor's files and that she "can't talk about it," Holloway actually spoke about Taylor's files. "I think it would tell why he's changed schools so many times," she unethically said to Ralston. Thus, in her floundering, she ignored her own words and, even worse, Taylor's right to privacy.

On top of that, Holloway's weak implication that there was something nefarious about Taylor because of his "files" does little more than make a veteran teacher laugh. To many of those who have been around the school district a while, it is believed that many devious principals have often tried to keep good teachers in their schools by poisoning those teachers' personnel folders with outright lies. It's a pattern of Clark County School District ruthlessness against which the faux union's leadership, Holloway and Jasonek specifically, has consistently failed to protect teachers. Together, Holloway and Jasonek have bungled guarding the salaries and rights of Las Vegas teachers for most of a decade.

And during that time, 5,000 new teachers have disappeared from the district every five years. With the quietude of mimes. Or the silence of dead monks. Each with his own horror story to tell about those in charge, who, apparently, have had access to their files. C'est la vie.

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher and faux union member.

The teachers of Clark County are currently facing a tough choice. Unfortunately, the choice they are being offered is between two unions, neither of which is designed to address the needs and interests of today¹s educators.

As more and more teachers in Clark County have expressed discontent with their representative unit, the Clark County Education Association, the Teamsters have decided to throw their hat in the ring. The Teamsters are saying that the status quo, the CCEA, is not meeting the interests of the teachers they represent. The CCEA says the Teamsters are unprofessional and are not capable of representing teachers effectively.

The fact of the matter is neither the CCEA nor the Teamsters are looking out for the best interests of teachers. Teachers are professionals who deserve a professional organization that will engender the type of respect and recognition that unions do not bring to the table. No matter what name a union goes by, whether it is the NEA, AFT or the Teamsters, the union model is the same. The Teamsters are no better a solution to the concerns of the teachers of Clark County than the CCEA.

The militant labor union mentality is inherently wrong for teachers. Industrial-style unionism neither advances the respect and compensation that educators deserve, nor does it improve the quality of education for kids.

Teachers have been tasked with the education of our nation¹s children, and must be the best and the brightest. The union model rewards teachers who act in a way that belies the nature of their profession. They are indeed professionals and should act and be treated as such. If teachers strive to be taken seriously as a profession, they need to align themselves with groups whose priorities do not center on political agendas that have little to do with the classroom.

The problem is that the unions currently in charge have a tight grip on information that is provided to teachers, and because of this lack of free flow of information, most teachers are unaware they have choices regarding who represents them. Most teachers believe that their only choice is to join the union or nothing at all. The move by the Teamsters to represent teachers in Clark County is good in a way because it is informing teachers that their choice is not the union or nothing.

However, if the Teamsters are successful and unseat the CCEA, the current problems will still exist. Teachers will continue to come in second place to union interests, and they will still not get the recognition they deserve as professionals.

It¹s understandable that Clark County¹s educators are wondering if there are better options than a union. The answer is yes. In fact, there is a groundswell among America¹s teachers, who are leaving traditional teacher labor unions, to join non-union professional associations. Nearly 300,000 teachers nationwide have opted to join non-union educators associations such as the Association of American Educators, which has members in all 50 states. Members can get most of the benefits that the unions provide but at a fraction of the cost.

It¹s a common sense option. Attorneys have the American Bar Association. Physicians have the American Medical Association. Why shouldn¹t educators belong to an organization that respects them as the academic professionals that they are?

Clark County teachers have a unique opportunity to do what¹s best for their profession and for the kids they teach. There have indeed been problems with the CCEA¹s representation and teachers should want change. However, the Teamsters¹ outdated labor model is no more appropriate for today¹s teachers than is the NEA. Teachers deserve a professional choice.

Gary Beckner is executive director of the Association of American Educators. www.aaeteachers.org

October 3, 2007

Contact: Heather Reams

Director of Communications

Association of American Educators

1-877-385-6264

heather@aaeteachers.org

Teacher Survey Sheds New Light on Performance Pay Debate

Alexandria, VA—Today the Association of American Educators (AAE), the largest national independent non-union teachers’ association, released its second survey on No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Survey results showed distinct differences in opinion with teacher labor unions, particularly with regard to performance pay and the use of “growth models” for accountability, both of which give teachers credit for student academic gains made during the school year.

The 1,286 respondents, all of whom are active classroom educators, appear to agree with the language that is currently in a draft bill of NCLB in Congress that encourages districts to implement some kind of performance-base pay system for teachers.

“Teachers know better than anyone what parts of NCLB work and what parts need to be improved or removed all together,” said Gary Beckner, AAE Executive Director. “This survey shows, however, that there are thousands of teachers who do not agree with the agenda for NCLB that is being pushed by the teacher unions.”

Some results of the survey are as follows:

70% of respondents say that traditional compensation systems based simply on the highest degree earned and time in the system should be improved upon; 63% say they would accept additional compensation based on the tested academic growth of their students over a school year; 59% say they should receive a bonus if their students achieve higher student achievement gains than other teachers teaching the same type of students; Members stated that student achievement gains and classroom evaluations were the top two measures of their work.

“Clearly educators want to be evaluated and compensated just like other professions,” said Beckner. “If teachers want different pay options to reward them for good work, they should have them.”

When teachers were asked about “growth models” for accountability, 81% supported adding a growth model component to NCLB.

A growth model gives credit to teachers and schools for academic gains each student makes from their initial baseline during the school year. This is especially important for teachers working with students who begin the school year several grade levels behind. Most educators agree that this is a more fair and accurate representation of a child's true academic progress.

The majority of teachers – 84% – agree with both the state and federal criteria for Highly Qualified Teacher status.

The responses were not all positive. Teachers believe that it is an unrealistic goal for all students to be on grade level by 2014.

Complete results of the survey, which ended on September 17, can be found at http://www.aaeteachers.org/AAE%20Survey%20October%202007.pdf

Dedicated to the academic and personal growth of every student, the Association of American Educators is the premier educators’ network that advances the teaching profession through teacher advocacy and protection, professional development and promoting excellence in education so that educators receive the respect, recognition and reward they deserve. AAE has members in all 50 states and welcomes professionals from all education entities. www.aaeteachers.org

Tuesday , September 18, 2007

Associated Press

BRUSSELS, Belgium —

The keys of the kingdom were posted on eBay.

Fed up with a three-month political standoff, a Belgian teacher posted an ad on the online auction site: "For Sale: Belgium, a Kingdom in three parts ... free premium: the king and his court (costs not included)."

Gerrit Six placed the advertisement on Saturday, offering free delivery, but pointing out that the country was coming secondhand and that potential buyers would have to take on more than $300 billion in national debt.

"I wanted to attract attention," Six said. "You almost have to throw a rock through a window to get attention for Belgium."

Like many of Belgium's 10 million citizens, Six is exasperated about a power struggle that has left Belgium in political limbo since the June 10 elections.

Demands for more autonomy from the Dutch-speaking Flemish are resisted by the French-speaking Walloons, making it impossible to form a government coalition and triggering concern the kingdom is on the verge of a breakup.

Six decided to vent his frustration through the ad.

"My proposal was to make it clear that Belgium was valuable, it's a masterpiece and we have to keep it," he told Associated Press Television News. "It's my country and I'm taking care of it, and with me are millions of Belgians."

EBay was happy to take the advertisement.

"It was a really fun listing made by a Belgian," Peter Burin, public relations manager of eBay Belgium. "This person, in a very funny way, reminded the Belgians what a great country Belgium actually is and it would be a shame to sell it."

However, the company decided to pull the ad Tuesday after receiving a bid of $14 million.

"We decided to take it down, just to avoid confusion," he told APTN.

By Jean-Paul Renaud | South Florida Sun-Sentinel

September 7, 2007

Broward County teachers today are voting on a contract that more generously rewards the top union officials who negotiated it than rank and file educators.

If it is approved, about two-thirds of Broward's 17,000 public school teachers will receive raises of 5 percent or less. The most substantial increases, as high as 17 percent, will go to the most senior teachers — less than a third of Broward's educators.

In contrast, more than two-thirds of the 22-member Broward Teachers Union executive board, which negotiated the contract, have the seniority to qualify for the most generous raises, records show.

"I'm not surprised at all because one would assume that the people at the top level are the ones that are on the negotiating team," said School Board member Stephanie Kraft. "I don't think that sounds right. I guess it would be nice if they would look after all the teachers equally."Several board members said the situation, though not unusual for a school district, reflects the power of unions. Some teachers said it shows union leaders are out of touch with the rank and file.

School districts across the state have a complicated system of setting salaries, mostly based on seniority levels that officials call "steps." In Broward, there are 22 steps, and teachers typically do not see substantial pay raises until they reach the 20th level — or their second decade educating children. All salaries are based on 196 days of work and can be increased if teachers obtain additional academic degrees and training.

The executive board of the teachers union helped craft the contract with the school system. The board includes 15 educators with more than two decades of service to the district. Union leaders say their board's makeup is dynamic and diverse, and this year members argued about how to divide the raises.

"It's become much more diverse," said Pat Santeramo, who as union president collects a $150,000 salary. "There are quite a few younger people. They are all very opinionated, similar to the School Board."

Teachers at the beginning and middle of their careers often complain about the salary system.

"Everyone should be taken care of across the board," said Denise Haltrecht, a first-grade teacher at Coconut Palm Elementary in Miramar. "One step should not be neglected over the other. We all work just as hard. Just because you're at year 20 doesn't mean you're working any more than a beginning-year teacher."

On her 13th year as a teacher, Haltrecht and her 467 colleagues on that step will receive a 4 percent raise.

Some School Board members say the system is unfair.

"Everybody should be treated equally," said Chairwoman Beverly Gallagher. "I didn't agree with the step system. But if we don't agree to the steps, then we would be at an impasse and nobody would get anything. Everybody would just be waiting."

But Santeramo said there should be rewards for "longevity, skills, knowledge."

"How we do that could be restructured," he said, adding that the union will sit down with school district officials in the new year to devise a less complicated way of doling out raises.

One person on BTU's board is on step 20. The 419 other teachers on that step will be paid a base salary of $53,377, a 7 percent raise.

Another board member is on step 21, along with 413 other teachers in Broward. Their salaries will jump to $62,677, a 17 percent increase over last year.

And 13 board members are on step 22 and will see their base salaries climb to $70,000 — a 12 percent increase that will make the 4,000 teachers with that seniority among the highest paid in the tri-county area.

"It's just another example of people who are not experiencing what most teachers are experiencing," said Donna Shubert, a kindergarten teacher at McNab Elementary in Pompano Beach. "They have the years in and they're negotiating with their own mind frame."

Shubert has been a teacher for nine years and will receive a 5 percent increase that will raise the salaries of educators on step 9 to $40,980.

Santeramo, however, says the makeup of the union's executive committee has little to do with the way senior teachers are compensated.

"We look at trying to provide a fair and equitable salary for all the employees," he said. "We represent all 17,000 teachers."

One School Board member has a solution for those teachers who think their union doesn't represent them.

"This is a perfect example of why beginning teachers and those that are a few years into their careers need to be more involved and engaged in their union," said Board Member Jennifer Gottlieb.

Jean-Paul Renaud can be reached at jprenaud@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4556.

Teamsters Assist CCEA Drop

Several teachers have indicated that they missed the
open window to drop CCEA. Since CCEA does not actively
advertise this open window, it seems only fair
teachers should be given another chance to drop. While
CCEA spent thousands of dollars recruiting new
teachers, they neglected to tell them that as a
probationary teacher they can’t really represent them.
They also failed to notify new members and old of the
fact that dues are increasing. The Teamsters feel this
is a travesty and are willing to assist teachers in
dropping from CCEA.

Any teacher wishing to drop simply send an e-mail
indicating their desire to drop and Teamsters is
providing a lawyer to handle the case. Free of charge
to teachers, nope, you don’t even have to sign an
Authorization Card. We would prefer you did, but this
is too important and we feel this is a just cause.

Go to the Teachers4Change website to complete this
email.

We have also heard that some teachers who dropped
their membership in CCEA are still having their dues
taken from their paychecks. These folks need to send
Ron Taylor (at the T4C website) an email.....

Don't forget the Open House at the Teamsters Hall on
Saturday, September 15..... Many folks have questions
regarding the the Health Trust...... Be there!!!!!

Ken
CCTL Moderator

It has been reported that Teamsters representatives were handing out organizational/campaigning materials at one of our New Teacher Orientations. It is inappropriate for any labor organization to engage in campaigning activities on District property during District time, the representatives were directed to immediately case and desist. CCEA has since asked for confirmation that the District will prohibit such conduct now and in the future, and that confirmation has been given. Please make sure everyone with supervisory responsibility over personnel and/or District facilities knows that the District cannot and will not allow any labor organization campaigning activities on District property during District time.

CLARK COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT

LEGAL OFFICE

INTRA-OFFICE COMMUNICATION

August 30, 2007

To: Executive Cabinet

From: Bill Hoffman

Subject: Collective Bargaining Campaign Activities
__________________________________
I am informed that the incumbent bargaining agent which represents District licensed personnel is being challenged by at least one other bargaining agent to become the recognized bargaining agent. It appears that campaign activities are occurring in some school sites. Please distribute the following memo, which discusses campaign activities, to appropriate administrators:

1. Pursuant to Article 2-1 of the existing collectively bargained agreement (CBA) between the District and the Clark County Education Association, the Association is the exclusive representative of all licensed personnel employed by the District. The District may not condone or approve of practices which would undermine CCEA’s exclusive rights of representation.

2. Article 7 of the CBA grants to the CCEA specific contractual rights regarding the use of School District facilities which are not available to other persons, entities, businesses or non-recognized labor organizations.

The District has the right to restrict the use of its facilities in a manner consistent with the CBA and the District’s Policies and Regulations.

a. School Mailboxes, Interschool Mail Service, and Faculty Bulletin Boards. The Association shall have the use of school mailboxes and the inter-school mail service for the distribution of non-defamatory and non-campaign related material initiated by the Association. The Association shall have the use of faculty bulletin boards for posting of non-defamatory materials and non-campaign related materials.

Copies of all materials shall be given to the building principal. The material will be clearly identified and the

Association accepts the liability for such material.

District teachers shall be permitted use of School District mail services for district-related business, but not for campaign related materials. School facsimile machines and copiers may only be used for district-related business, but not for campaign related materials. School mailboxes, mail services, and faculty bulletin boards may not be used for campaign purposes.

b. InterAct. The Association, the Teachers’ Health Trust, and the CCEA Community Foundation shall have the use of the District’s electronic bulletin board/messaging system through InterAct for posting of non-defamatory and noncampaign related materials. In addition, there shall be a link through InterAct to the Association’s website. This link may not be used for purposes of soliciting membership.

Messages, materials and announcements posted on InterAct must be approved in advance by the Associate Superintendent, Human Resources Division, or her designee. InterAct may not be used for campaign purposes.

c. Facilities. The Association shall be allowed the use of school buildings and premises for association meetings and activities on regular school days as long as arrangements have been made with the principal of the building. Such activities shall not conflict with any regular or special educational activities and shall not involve additional or extra custodial services and/or other unusual expenses to the School District. Use of the buildings on other than school days requires the approval of the Superintendent in addition to the school principal. Any added expense resulting from the Association use shall be paid by the Association. Individual teachers will not be prohibited from the responsible use of the school facilities.

3. Access by non-employee representatives for purposes of campaigning. As a general proposition, the District may refuse to allow non-employee representatives from nonrecognized union organizations to have access to District property, provided there is an adequate opportunity for organizers to contact employees without entering District “Non-working time” means break times and duty-free lunch 1 periods as well as those periods of time before work and after work.

“Non working areas” means areas where employees are not 2 performing duties associated with their employment, for example, the teachers’ lounge and school parking lots.

Do the rights of individual teachers outweigh the collective union?

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned this June the Washington Supreme Court’s ruling, reaffirming teachers’ individual freedom of speech rights take precedence over the collective unions’. This case came out of Washington after the Washington Education Association (WEA) was fined $590,000 for misuse of members’ dues by a county court.

The WEA appealed to the Washington Supreme Court, receiving a ruling in their favor. The WEA claimed in court that it had no 'fiduciary responsibility' to its members and that the law unconstitutionally ‘burdened’ its free speech rights. The Washington Supreme Court agreed only to have its strange legal logic thrown out by the highest court in the land. Click here to read the WorldnetDaily article.

This is a great victory for teachers across America. As a right to work state, Nevada teachers do not have to pay ‘collective bargaining fees’ if not a member as in Washington. The issue applicable to Nevada is the NSEA’s arrogant treatment of members is the same as the WEA with the union’s narrow political agenda being pursued at the expense of those they pretend to represent.

House Education Leaders Issue Draft NCLB Renewal Plan

By David J. Hoff and Alyson Klein

Education Week

The leaders of the House education committee today released a draft of a plan for reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act, outlining proposals that would revise how adequate yearly progress is calculated and overhaul the interventions for schools failing to meet achievement goals.

In releasing the long-awaited plan, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., and Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., said that they were inviting comments from educators so that they can incorporate their ideas into the bill they hope to introduce shortly after Labor Day.

You can read the rest of this Education Week article by clicking here.

Teacher Magazine

Published: August 15, 2007

Barbara Morgan Holds Class

By The Associated Press

Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan transformed the space shuttle and space station into a classroom Tuesday for her first education session from orbit, fulfilling the legacy of Christa McAuliffe with joy and also some sadness.

"I've thought about Christa and the Challenger crew just about every day since 20-plus years ago," Morgan said in a series of interviews right before class got under way. "I hope that they know that they are here with us in our hearts."

Morgan, 55, who was McAuliffe's backup for the doomed 1986 flight, got her first opportunity to talk with schoolchildren late Tuesday afternoon, almost halfway through her two-week mission.
Hundreds of youngsters jammed the Discovery Center of Idaho in Boise, less than 100 miles from the elementary school where Morgan taught before becoming an astronaut. Her two sons, now teenagers, attended inventors' camp there years ago.

One child wanted to know about exercising in space. In response, Morgan lifted the two large men floating alongside her, one in each hand, and pretended to be straining. Another youngster wanted to see a demonstration of drinking in space. Morgan and her colleagues obliged by squeezing bubbles from a straw in a drink pouch and swallowing the red blobs, which floated everywhere. The four astronauts also used pingpong balls and a softball for props.

Afterward, 12-year-old Paige Dashiell said: It's not every day you talk to someone in space." Paige asked what stars look like from space. The answer: Stars shine steadily and don't twinkle since there's no atmosphere to distort the light.

Morgan was also asked how being a teacher compared to being an astronaut.
"Astronauts and teachers actually do the same thing," she answered. "We explore, we discover and we share. And the great thing about being a teacher is you get to do that with students, and the great thing about being an astronaut is you get to do it in space, and those are absolutely wonderful jobs."

The 25-minute question-and-answer session was a welcome diversion for NASA, which found itself trying to explain NASA is redesigning the brackets, but the new ones won't be ready until next year—again—why foam insulation was still falling off shuttle fuel tanks more than four years after the Columbia disaster.

The gouge in shuttle Endeavour's belly was not considered a threat to the crew, but NASA was debating whether to send astronauts out to fix it in order to avoid time-consuming post-flight repairs.

So far, NASA's thermal analyses makes everyone "cautiously optimistic" that no repairs will be needed, said John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team. All the testing and analyses should be completed by Wednesday.

"My understanding is that it's really not a safety issue for us on board," said Endeavour's commander, Scott Kelly. "There isn't a whole lot of concern on board right now."

Indeed, business went on as usual aboard the joined shuttle-station complex Tuesday. Morgan and her colleagues removed a platform from Endeavour's payload bay and attached it to the international space station, where it will be used to hold large spare parts.

A special team of astronauts and specialists spent a second day Tuesday mapping out what would be the best way to proceed, if repairs are ordered. Most likely, two astronauts would be maneuvered on the end of Endeavour's 100-foot robot arm and extension boom to the difficult-to-reach spot, and apply a black paint and caulk-like goo to the damage.

A sliver of the gouge, which is 3½ inches long and 2 inches wide, penetrates all the way through two thermal tiles, exposing the thin felt fabric that is the final barrier before the shuttle's aluminum frame. Columbia's hole was considerably bigger and in a wing, which sees higher temperatures than the 2,000 degrees that scorch the ship's underside during re-entry.
Any repairs would be conducted during the shuttle's fourth spacewalk, scheduled for Friday. If more time is needed to get ready, NASA will keep the shuttle at the station even longer and bump the spacewalk to Saturday.

Even though the repair itself would be relatively simple, the astronauts would be wearing 300-pound spacesuits and carrying 150 pounds of tools that could bang into the shuttle and cause even more damage. All spacewalks are hazardous, Shannon noted, and so NASA would not want to add more outside work unless it was absolutely necessary.

"I've been really interested in it but I think NASA's doing the right thing," said Morgan's husband, Clay.

NASA is uncertain whether foam, ice or a combination of both broke off Endeavour's external fuel tank during last Wednesday's liftoff. The debris—4 inches long, almost 4 inches wide and almost 2 inches deep—peeled away from a bracket on the tank, fell against a strut lower on the tank, then shot into the shuttle's belly. It weighed less than an ounce.

These brackets have shed foam, more frequently than ever, since shuttle flights resumed following the 2003 Columbia disaster, Shannon said. Engineers speculate more ice could be forming on these brackets because the super-cold fuel is being loaded an hour earlier than before.

NASA is redesigning the brackets, but the new ones won't be ready until next year.

Unwrapping the Gifted

By Tamara Fisher

Tamara Fisher is a K-12 gifted education specialist for a school district located on an Indian reservation in northwestern Montana and president-elect of the Montana Association of Gifted and Talented Education. With Karen Isaacson, she is also co-author of Intelligent Life in the Classroom: Smart Kids and Their Teachers. Her hobbies include drawing, hiking, fourwheeling, and building houses. (She lives in a house she built herself.) In this blog, Fisher discusses news and developments in the gifted education community and offers advice for teachers on working with gifted students.

August 14, 2007
My Yard is Gifted

Rather than begin my blog here at Teacher with the necessaries of who I am and what I'm all about (there's plenty of time for that later), I'd like instead to kick it off with a hopefully-thought-provoking analogy. Given that the anticipation of a new school year is energizing the coming weeks, my aim with this post is simply to generate some timely thought, reflection, discussion, and questions.

Teachers are among the most amazing people I know, and as responses to Jessica's recent "Why do teachers stay" post showed, we all teach for some rather inspiring, optimistic, and altruistic reasons. Teachers are talented, curious, hard working, and very caring. Because of that, I know you are up to the challenge I offer today.

Take a moment and ponder which of your current or former students come to mind as you read the next few paragraphs:

In March of each year, I marvel at my lawn. Unlike most other yards, it remains relatively green throughout the winter (when it is not snow-covered). When spring arrives, and without any prompting from me, it rapidly grows into a lush carpet. I don’t water it. I don’t weed it. I barely manage to mow it (we all know how hectic spring is for teachers!) Yet even lacking my help, my yard is amazingly gorgeous and healthy in springtime. As others struggle to green up their lawns in spring, mine (seemingly) needs no attention.

My yard is gifted. It’s the soil… My neighborhood used to be a dairy farm and my particular lot was a holding pen. The soil beneath my yard is pretty much well-aged manure. No wonder I don’t even have to try and yet still end up with a gorgeous lawn when the snow melts!

I take it for granted, though. As the summer heat comes and I jaunt off around the country to various conferences or to visit relatives, my yard still doesn’t get watered. It still doesn’t get weeded. It still barely gets mowed. And despite the fact that its soil is second-generation manure, the neglect now clearly shows. My lawn isn’t anywhere near what it could be. It DOES need attention; it does need the nurturing I often neglect to give it because I am otherwise occupied or because I think it will be okay without my help.

It is inevitable that we teachers, at one point or another, will have students in our classrooms who somehow ended up with great soil. Academically and intellectually, they often seem to blossom all on their own. They are “where they need to be” (or, more often than not, are well beyond) according to state standards for children their age. With – let’s admit it – sometimes very little effort on the teacher’s part, they learn everything they’re supposed to learn that year, or they already knew it before the year began. They are easily overlooked because it’s a safe bet that they will test as “Proficient,” while so many others are in the danger zone.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t put forth every effort to help our struggling students. Of course we should! Part of the beauty of America is that we believe in the possibilities within everyone.
And I’m not saying that there are no teachers out there who do their best by the gifted students in their classrooms. There are many, many amazing teachers who do everything they can to challenge the highly capable kids in their charge. And there are many others who want to do what’s right by them, but are at a loss as to where to begin, or are overwhelmed by all of the need in their classrooms and the requirements of their jobs.

But, to generate thought and discussion, I ask: Generally speaking, do we (as a nation, as a profession) put forth every effort to stretch the students who are already “there”? Do we take for granted the fact that some students, without much assistance from us, will be (supposedly) “just fine” academically on their own? Are they really “just fine” or “where they need to be” if we haven’t truly challenged them to stretch and grow academically and intellectually? Do they not deserve to be s t r e t c h e d also? Do they not deserve to learn and grow academically as much as possible, too? Are they really reaching their potential if we haven’t even tried to find how far their potential reaches?

Perhaps I can predict what some of you are wondering: “But where am I going to find the time to challenge those kids when I’m already swamped getting everyone else up to speed?” “But if I move that child ahead in the curriculum, then what will his teacher next year do with him?” “Isn’t it elitist to target only certain students for special learning opportunities?” “If I let her do something ‘special,’ then won’t I have to let all of the other kids do it, too?” “If they are already learning [or already know] what they’re ‘supposed’ to be learning, then why do I have to worry about them?”

This is just one post, and the topics of gifted students and gifted education are too big to cover all at once. We shall get to those concerns, those questions, those issues, too. For now, I only hope to prompt some thinking about the students with great soil, the ones whose lawns are green in winter, the ones whom we believe to be “already where they need to be.” What thoughts, questions, worries, ideas, epiphanies, and concerns do you have in regards to them?

Thank you for joining me and I look forward to interacting with everyone over the course of this year!

Teachers who get police training could get extra pay, carry guns

By Emily Richmond

Las Vegas Sun

A proposal that Nevada teachers be allowed to carry concealed weapons garnered a lot of notoriety but little traction among state lawmakers this year. Now comes this idea: Give bonus pay to teachers - from kindergarten to college - who would be trained and armed as reserve school police officers.

Faculty-turned-campus cops would supplement the thin ranks of campus police and be in position to respond quickly to campus emergencies, the two champions of the idea say.
Others worry about allowing teachers to be put in that kind of position.

The idea will be taken up at separate meetings this month by Nevada System of Higher Education regents and the State Board of Education.

The proposal was initiated in June ago by Regent Stavros Anthony, a Metro Police captain, who was thinking in terms of college campuses. State Board of Education member Anthony Ruggiero, an investigator with the state attorney general's office, wants to extend the concept to the state's K-12 teachers as well.

It expands the idea, proposed during the 2007 legislative session by Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, that teachers be allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus, provided they had undergone 40 hours of training. The bill died in committee.

To become reserve campus police officers, teachers would have to pass a physical and psychological evaluation, as well as a comprehensive background check. Those who make it through the selection process would have to pay about $1,190 for classes at the community college's Law Enforcement Training Academy, including "Firearms I & II" "Defensive Tactics/Physical Training" and "Introduction to Juvenile Justice." An additional $1,000 would be required for the academy uniforms and equipment.

After completing the training, teachers would be responsible for $1,500 in uniform and equipment costs, although their guns would be provided by the school police department. School districts would then have to pay the auxiliary officers $3,000 annually.

Ruggiero said he met with School Police officials in Washoe and Clark counties, and he assured them that the reserve officers would be expected to follow the directives, rules and regulations of each individual school district police department.

The idea is a win-win, Ruggiero said: Teachers would have an opportunity for more training and pay, and schools would solve the perpetual shortage of campus cops.

"Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, why not use the resources you have in place?" said Ruggiero, who is himself a reserve officer for UNLV's campus police. "I'm sure there are teachers out there that have thought about becoming officers. We shouldn't restrict them . We should train them."

Education officials say so far there are more questions than answers about the proposal.
If a child becomes violent during class, would the teacher-officer be allowed to use more aggressive means of restraint than a regular teacher? In a campus emergency, would the teacher-officer leave his classroom unattended to respond?

"I'm a common-sense guy, but it's hard to wade through this," said John Jasonek, executive director of the Clark County Education Association, which represents most of the district's 18,000 teachers. "Right now this isn't passing the initial sniff test."

Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes said he would like to see how the proposal plays out at the university level.

"There may be some value in having teachers who want increased security training to receive that training," Rulffes said. "But it's too soon to say whether they should actually be able to carry firearms."

Rulffes said he's not even wholly comfortable with regular school police officers carrying guns, even though he realizes it's a necessary response to the level of violence and criminal activity in the community at large, which often spills onto campuses.

He also wonders whether the program would encourage teachers to leave the classroom in pursuit of better-paying jobs in law enforcement.

Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services based in Cleveland, said the proposal to turn teachers into reserve officers is misguided.

"Teachers get into education to teach, not to be cops," Trump said. "Teachers are already overwhelmed with all of the academic, behavioral and administrative tasks they have to perform. To say you're going to add a whole other role and mind-set is unrealistic."

Debate about arming teachers surfaces periodically in other states, usually in the wake of a high-profile campus shooting, Trump said.

"Rather than off-the-wall proposals, how about our legislators focus on stopping the cuts to funding for school safety and emergency preparedness, mental health services and support programs," Trump said. "That might actually provide an improved learning environment, instead of trying to make teachers into cops."

Doubts Cast on Math, Science Teaching Lures

By Sean Cavanagh

Education Week

Few strategies for luring more students and working adults into math and science teaching have proved as popular among elected officials as financial incentives, which try to make one of the least appealing aspects of the job—low pay—a little less daunting.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are considering a number of bills that would expand existing incentives, such as scholarships and loan forgiveness for aspiring educators, and create new monetary inducements. Dozens of states, meanwhile, already offer their own incentives for teachers in subjects with shortages, including mathematics and science.

But those who have studied financial incentives say evidence is scant that they are attracting substantial numbers of college students and career-changers to math and science teaching, despite years of investments in those programs.

Opinions vary on why incentives have not shown greater results. Some believe the money available is relatively insignificant when weighed against potential job candidates’ worries about poor salaries and working conditions. Others say the hodgepodge of federal, state, and local incentives is so fragmented that few potential teachers are aware of what’s available.

“There’s been virtually no research on how effective [these] options are,” said Dan Goldhaber, a research professor at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, based at the University of Washington in Seattle. “We ought to be making decisions about these programs based on something more than what might be effective, and instead base it on empirical evidence.”

Yet backers of incentives believe they can offer an important carrot for college students and for people already in the work world. Even if that extra money is of secondary importance to job candidates, it can make the teaching profession more appealing to math and science majors who are likely to have more lucrative options in the private sector.

Teaching for Dollars
In addition to the myriad state financial-incentive programs, the federal government oversees a number of monetary hooks to recruit and retain teachers in high-need fields, including math and science:

The Robert Noyce Scholarship Program, administered by the National Science Foundation, offers scholarships of $10,000 annually, for two years, to students majoring in math- and sciencerelated fields, as well as to working professionals.

The Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program, signed into law in 2006 and administered by the U.S. Department of Education, makes teachers of math, science, and special education eligible for up to $17,500 of loan repayment.

Teachers of math and science also can have up to 100 percent of their Perkins Loans canceled, with the amounts depending on years of service in the classroom.

The federal Transition to Teaching program provides money to school districts and colleges to pay for financial incentives of up to $5,000, total, to midcareer professionals, including paraprofessionals, interested in becoming trained as teachers in high-need schools.

SOURCES: U.S. Department of Education; National Science FoundationAnna M. Swenty, 26, credits an incentive program with having changed her thinking about teaching.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Missouri-Columbia three years ago, Ms. Swenty was considering graduate school and research jobs, but those career paths seemed too specialized. It wasn’t until she learned about the federal Robert Noyce Scholarship Program that the idea of teaching began to take hold.

The program, which is financed through the National Science Foundation at about $9 million a year, provided her with a total of $10,000 to return to school and earn a teaching certificate. In return, she agreed to work in a high-poverty school. She now teaches biology and earth science at Narrows High School in western Virginia.

“It was a godsend,” Ms. Swenty said of the scholarship. “I was worried about going into debt. … No one ever told me in my [undergraduate] program that teaching was a viable option.”

Financial Hook
Noyce money flows to colleges and universities, which give it to qualified applicants: college majors in math and science subjects who want to go into teaching, and working professionals with expertise in those areas. The program’s effectiveness is being evaluated, a process that is expected to be complete next year, said Joan T. Prival, the program’s lead director at the NSF. Separate bills approved by the House and the Senate would expand the program.

House lawmakers also recently approved a bill that would provide scholarships of as much as $16,000 to college students who agree to work in high-need subjects in schools serving large numbers of low-income students A measure that cleared the Senate this month would tie loan forgiveness to teachers’ income levels and lengths of service.

Low pay is just one of the factors that most frustrate teachers about their profession. Surveys show lack of administrative support and poor working conditions are of equal or greater concern.

Schools nationwide struggle to find qualified teachers in math and science. About 36 percent of secondary school math classes are taught by teachers who lack even a minor in math or a related subject, compared with 24 percent in all core academic subjects, according to the Education Trust, a Washington-based policy organization.

The pressure on schools to find teaching talent is likely to grow. About one-third of today’s teaching corps is expected to retire by 2010, according to one estimate. And the United States will need about 280,000 new teachers in math and science by 2015, a recent report says.

Although he believes financial incentives can make a difference to potential teachers, Gerald F. Wheeler, the executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, in Arlington, Va., said pay plans that offer higher salaries to math and science teachers have greater potential, because they bring educators’ yearly pay closer to those of jobs in the private sector.

“It doesn’t have to be equal” to other professions, he said, “but they have to be able to play in that marketplace.”

But grants and scholarships have proved more politically palatable in states than such differential-pay plans or pay-for-performance proposals, which tie teacher compensation to student achievement, said Tricia Coulter, the director of the teaching-quality and leadership institute at the Education Commission of the States, a research organization in Denver.

Thirty-one states have financial incentives for recruiting and retaining teachers, the ECS estimates. They vary in size and scope. Kansas offers $5,000 a year to college juniors and seniors who agree to become teachers in high-need subjects, including math and science.

During the 2006-07 academic year, the state awarded 248 scholarships, 45 of which went to math and science teachers, said Diane Lindeman, the director of student financial assistance for the Kansas board of regents. The state spent $778,000 on scholarships during that year.

The program helped only a small fraction of the number of teachers needed to fill math and science vacancies, Ms. Lindeman acknowledged. “There are so many factors in this other than just throwing money at people for going to college,” she said. “You’ve got to have the people who are actually eligible to do this and want to do this.”

Little Advertised?
Kansas’ scholarships require recipients to teach at a public or private school in the state for at least two years. About 40 percent of awardees in the most recent recorded year did not complete their obligation because they moved out of state or lost interest in teaching, among other reasons. Awardees who do not fulfill that obligation must repay the scholarships. Recouping money from those who renege can be a cumbersome process, Ms. Lindeman said.

Some policy experts warn that incentives can have the unintended effect of encouraging new teachers who lack the necessary talent or enthusiasm for the job to stay to meet financial commitments.

“You lock in some people who you probably do not want to be teaching,” said Eric A. Hanushek, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

Several observers said a greater flaw is that aspiring teachers do not have a single source to tell them about the available federal and state incentives—a common problem in financial aid. A bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., would require the federal government to set up a database of public and private scholarships in math- and science-related fields.

“There’s a whole lot of stuff out there, but people kind of stumble across it,” said Margaret E. Heisel, a lead coordinator for the California Teach/Science Math Initiative, a program aimed at recruiting educators into the profession. Students, she said, need a system that tells them that “if you are interested in math or science teaching, we have a way of making sure you don’t have a lot of debt at the end of college.”

The UC and California State University systems in 2005 announced a plan to try to raise the number of math and science teachers who graduate from their collective teacher programs from 1,000 to 2,500 a year. The systems, with private-sector support, offer a host of financial incentives to teachers, including waiving up to $19,000 in college loans.

One state program that appears to have achieved some success is in North Carolina, where teachers of math, science, or special education in high-poverty or academically struggling schools were given an extra $1,800 a year, according to a 2006 study by researchers at Duke University. Turnover among those teachers fell by 12 percent from 2001 to 2004, and might have fallen more if the program, which the state eliminated in 2004 for lack of legislative support, had been better understood by teachers, researchers found.

Many state incentive programs “are new, and they’re relatively small in scale,” said James Brown, the co-chairman of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Caucus, a Washington-based group that is backing federal legislation to expand incentives.

“The states are grappling with this just as the federal government is, and it’s going to take a while to get it right,” Mr. Brown said. “The problem is large enough that you need a national role that will get national attention.”

Coverage of mathematics, science, and technology education is supported by a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, at www.kauffman.org.

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

Published: July 17, 2007

New York Times

A lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Washington State contends that the National Education Association breached its duty to members by accepting millions of dollars in payments from two financial firms whose high-cost investments it recommended to members in an association-sponsored retirement plan.

The case was filed on behalf of two N.E.A. members who had invested in annuities sold by Nationwide Life Insurance Company and the Security Benefit Group. It contends that by actively endorsing these products, which carry high fees, the N.E.A., through its N.E.A. Member Benefits subsidiary, took on the role of a retirement plan sponsor, which must put its members’ interests ahead of its own.

By taking fees from the two companies whose annuities N.E.A. Member Benefits recommended to its members, the N.E.A. breached its duty to them, the suit contends. The N.E.A. is the nation’s largest professional organization; its Web site says it serves 3.2 million workers in education, from preschool to university graduate programs.

The suit reflects heightened concern among retirement plan participants that excessive fees are diminishing their savings and enriching financial services firms. Last November, the General Accountability Office published a study concluding that retirement plan participants, as well as the Labor Department, needed clearer information on fees in these investment vehicles.

Lawyers representing the plaintiffs said they had been unable to calculate the total payments received by N.E.A. officials from Nationwide and Security Benefit since 1991, when the products were first endorsed by the organization. But a recent Security Benefit prospectus indicated that fees paid to N.E.A. Member Benefits might exceed $2 million a year. That prospectus said Security Benefit paid the N.E.A. subsidiary $510,000 a quarter.

The suit, filed in United States District Court for the Western District of Washington at Tacoma, said that such payments were not disclosed to N.E.A. plan participants. Instead, N.E.A. Member Benefits maintained that it selected Nationwide and Security Benefit based on competitive criteria, the suit said.

Lisa M. Sotir, general counsel to N.E.A. Member Benefits, declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying that she had not yet seen it.

Michel Cole, a spokeswoman for Security Benefit, said it was against the firm’s policy to comment on pending litigation. Erica Lewis, a spokeswoman for Nationwide, said company officials could not comment until they had seen the complaint.

Lawsuits on behalf of pensioners are usually brought under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, known as Erisa, which requires organizations overseeing retirement plans to put their beneficiaries’ interests first.

The type of 403(b) programs at issue in the complaint are typically exempt from Erisa. But the lawyers bringing the case argued that because the N.E.A. actively promoted the annuity products to its members, it essentially stepped in as a plan sponsor. That made it subject to Erisa’s fiduciary duty requirements, the lawsuit contended.

“The Erisa exemption applies to situations where the employer does nothing more than arrange for salary deferral for its employees,” said Derek W. Loeser, a lawyer at Keller Rohrback in Seattle, which represents the plaintiffs in the case. “But in endorsed plans, the union together with the insurance company are taking over the role that the plan sponsor plays.”

From 1991 to 2000, Nationwide was the exclusive N.E.A. plan provider. The company sold its N.E.A. Valuebuilder accounts, with more than $860 million in assets, to Security Benefit Life Insurance Company for $72 million in 2000, the suit said.

Since 1991, the suit said, N.E.A. members have invested more than $1 billion in the Valuebuilder plan.

The fees levied in the Nationwide and Security Benefit annuities “far exceeded” those of comparable retirement vehicles available elsewhere, the suit said. The fees in one of the annuities recommended for the Valuebuilder plan reached 10.62 percent, according to the suit, making it exceedingly difficult for investors to make money in the plan.

Dan D. Otter is a teacher and operator of www.403bwise.com, a Web site aimed at educating retirement plan participants about high fees associated with some of the investment vehicles. He said teachers were especially vulnerable to problematic plans. “There is an army of agents trolling school districts across the country selling high-fee variable annuities,” he said. “I want all 403(b) participants to know how the plan works and also advocate for low-cost choices.”
According to regulatory filings, N.E.A. Member Benefits “recovers its costs through contracts with various program suppliers” as well as the N.E.A. In 2005, the corporation generated income of $52 million, the filings stated.

Ms. Sotir said that figure included income generated from many contracts, including those covering the N.E.A. credit card, home financing and life insurance programs. “Valuebuilder is a very small portion of that,” she said.

The suit against the N.E.A. is the second such case filed by lawyers at Keller Rohrback against an association that administers retirement accounts to its members. Last April, the firm filed a class action against the New York State United Teachers Member Benefits Trust, a retirement plan set up to benefit teachers in the state.

Edward A. H. Siedle, a lawyer and president of Benchmark Financial Services in Ocean Ridge, Fla., a company that investigates money managers on behalf of pension plans, also represents the plaintiffs in the case. “Investors may purchase annuities for lifetime income, but for unions, endorsing annuities is lifetime income,” he said. “Teachers deserve better.”

Half of new teachers leave the field within five years, according to the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing students with qualified teachers.

A recent California State University study showed a quarter of California teachers leave the profession within four years because of bureaucratic impediments, unnecessary meetings and inadequate support. As a result, the state of California has spent more than $455 million each year recruiting, hiring and preparing replacement teachers.

Nevada has no state recruitment program and doesn't track statewide retention rates, costs or whether large class sizes or student discipline problems are driving teachers out of the classroom.

The nationwide problem of teacher shortages might be that teaching is losing its appeal.
Nat Lommori, superintendent of the Lyon County School District, remembers attending
out-of-state teacher career fairs years ago where hundreds, if not a few thousand, applicants waited for interviews.

"We didn't even take lunch," he said of a two-day affair in Greeley, Colo. "It was that busy. We don't even go there anymore because there's nobody there."

He said things are different because of the low pay.

"(Teaching) does not compare with other professions," he said. "These people have to get a bachelor's degree, and if you have a bachelor's degree in engineering or accounting, you're making $40,000, $50,000, even $60,000 coming out."

Rich Alexander, Douglas County assistant superintendent, said statistics show that people have several different careers during their lifetime.

"We are seeing that change in teaching," he said. "Simplistic solutions -- just pay them more to stay -- offers no assurance that they will stay and are little incentive compared to family and other issues."

Reasons to leave

Keith Rheault, Nevada superintendent of education, listed the three most significant reasons teachers leave off the top of his head: relocation, retirement and problems with a school district.
Gloria Dopf, deputy superintendent of instruction for the Nevada Department of Education, said the department handles licensure and related issues but not recruitment.

"The hiring and recruitment of teachers is a local function, so essentially, the districts have more direct access with teachers and have the ability of analyzing why teachers leave," she said.

Districts do track why teachers leave.

"The people that we do see leaving might be moving to another state or maybe closer to family," said Richard Stokes, associate superintendent of human resources for the Carson City School District. "Or, people are moving with a spouse because a spouse has relocated.
"We don't see all of the reasons as to why they're going," Stokes said. "We chat with them and find out why they're leaving. Sometimes, they don't go into why they're leaving."

Not all teachers have exit interviews, and only about 50 percent accept the invitation for an exit interview in Carson City, Stokes said.

Administrators are not sure how accurate the termination and resignation numbers are because some teachers resign before they are fired, said Tom Stauss, assistant superintendent of human resources for the Washoe County School District.

Lynn Warne, president of the teachers union for Washoe County, said resignations occur because of burnout, poor classroom conditions, unresolved discipline issues with students and too many students in a classroom.

"The class-size reduction that the state tried putting in place has led to team-teaching," she said. "The true spirit of class-size reduction has never been implemented or implemented correctly."

The poor physical condition of a school can lead to a drop in a teacher's spirit, said Warne.
"The deferred maintenance price tag the district carries is huge," she said. "Not only are the buildings falling apart, we're packed to the rim with teachers. It's a huge morale buster."

Many teachers leave to follow a spouse who is moving. Sometimes, the family moves to be closer to relatives. Of late, Stokes said he'd seen some resignations occur because of the high cost of gas. Teachers who lived in Reno left their job with Carson to work in the Washoe County School District, and vice versa.

Taking the reins

Ten years ago, Washoe County School District administrators noticed that teachers were flocking out the door. Eighteen percent left that year.

The school district started a mentoring program to provide teachers with support. In the past 10 years, the attrition rate has dropped from 18 percent to 5 percent.

Attrition is a reduction in staff numbers due to resignation, retirement or death. Retention is the percentage of teachers that return each year.

"We found new teachers need more support their first year because of the many demands a new teacher faces," said Sharyn Appolloni, program coordinator for the Washoe County School District's mentoring program.

"A novice teacher in their first years needs that support to be the best teacher they can be," Appolloni said.

Just this past year, the Washoe district matched 300 trained mentors with 300 first- and
second-year teachers.

New teachers take district-

offered classes, such as classroom management or math and literacy. Mentors meet weekly with new teachers, observe them in classrooms and accompany them on learning visits.
Teaching assessments show that mentored teachers perform at the same levels as veteran teachers in the classroom, Appolloni said. That means students benefit, too, she said. In addition, 19 instructional coaches were hired in 2006-07 and placed at schools to provide on-site professional development.

"The real beauty is they are there all the time helping teachers with what they need," said Susan Denning, a district coordinator with the teaching and learning program.
Carson City also provides a mentoring program. Teachers are given tips for managing the classroom, preparing for lessons, ordering supplies and setting up field trips. But there are no data showing that its mentor program has improved teacher retention rates.

"Since I have been at the Carson City School District, since July 2001, we replace 8 to 10 percent of our certified staff -- teachers, counselors, etc. -- each year," Stokes said. "The percentage has only varied slightly over the past six years. I don't have data that shows that our mentoring program is preventing teachers from leaving our district."

Hiring not a problem

Administrators in the Washoe, Carson City, Lyon and Douglas County school districts said they do not have problems hiring the teachers they need, except in a few niche areas, such as special-education or high school science and math.

"I would say that for elementary education, there are enough applicants for the vacancies we have," Stokes said. "Anything on the secondary level gets a little trickier because it's a
more-focused discipline."

This would be an excellent time to phone in your
questions and comments on the Teamsters, CCEA, and
AAE.

Hope you can join in on this stimulating conversation.
If you have any questions, please forward them to me
at --- keninvegas308@yahoo.com or place them in
this forum. I intend to ask MEH about her salary,
CCEA's poor performance when it comes to negotiations,
and CCEA's procedures on not representing first-year
teachers (probationary teachers) when it comes to
problems with school administrators.

Ken

To the editor:

Because more and more teachers in Clark County have expressed discontent with their representative unit, the Clark County Education Association, the Teamsters have decided to throw their hat in the ring.

But the fact of the matter is neither the association nor the Teamsters is looking out for the best interests of teachers. Teachers are professionals who deserve a professional organization that will engender the type of respect and recognition that unions do not bring to the table. The Teamsters are no better a solution to the concerns of the teachers of Clark County than the association.

The militant labor union mentality is inherently wrong for teachers. Industrial-style unionism neither advances the respect and compensation that educators deserve nor does it improve the quality of education for kids.

Teachers have been tasked with the education of our nation's children, and must be the best and the brightest. The union model rewards teachers who act in a way that belies the nature of their profession. If teachers strive to be taken seriously as a profession, they need to align themselves with groups whose priorities do not center on political agendas that have little to do with the classroom.

It's understandable that Clark County's educators are wondering if there are better options than a union. The answer is yes. In fact, there is a groundswell among America's teachers, who are leaving traditional teacher labor unions to join non-union professional associations. Nearly 300,000 teachers nationwide have opted to join non-union educators associations such as the Association of American Educators, which has members in all 50 states. Members can get most of the benefits that the unions provide but at a fraction of the cost.

Clark County teachers have a unique opportunity to do what's best for their profession and for the kids they teach. There have indeed been problems with the Clark County Education Association's representation, and teachers should want change.

However, the Teamsters outdated labor model is no more appropriate for today's teachers than is the National Education Association. Teachers deserve a professional choice.

Gary Beckner

MISSION VIEJO, CALIF.

THE WRITER IS CHAIRMAN OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN EDUCATORS.

Turning to Teachers

Unhappy with a new curriculum developed by an outside firm, Pittsburgh's school district is diverting money from the company’s contract to hire district teachers and academic coaches as curriculum writers this year. Under the plan, some $2.4 million from the district's $8.4 million contract with Kaplan K12 Learning Services will be divvied up among the teacher-curriculum writers, teachers who provide feedback, and University of Pittsburgh's Institute for Learning, which will provide resources and services to the writers. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, teachers could make $16,000 to $22,000 per course for designing the curriculum—in addition to their regular pay.

Initial installments of the new curriculum introduced by Kaplan last school year triggered a range of complaints from teachers, prompting the district to reconsider the contract. Kaplan Senior Vice President Seppy Basili, however, said it’s normal for school systems to develop more of their own curricula in the second or third years of a contract with Kaplan. "The decision to go in this direction was based on some of the feedback really all through the year from teachers who, I think, wanted a greater voice and greater stake in the process," Basili said.
Posted by Stacey Hollenbeck

A New Yardstick

As the debate over evaluating test scores continues, many schools across the country are shifting their method of evaluating student progress. More than two dozen states, including Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, and Ohio, are looking to a new way of analyzing test scores, called a “growth model,” which assesses individual student's progress as they advance from grade to grade instead of comparing them to the previous year’s class.

The model has been helpful in both urban areas where the student population includes at-risk children, as well as affluent communities which tend to attract top-performing children. While tests scores traditionally have been used to focus on low performing students, the growth model considers students at all levels, thereby putting pressure on high-performing schools that have yet to answer to test scores.

The growth model, however, does not have a universal appeal. Some teachers and parents feel the approach still places too much emphasis on test scores and they find the data incomprehensible. Said Aimee Bolender, president of the Alliance-AFT, which represents 9,000 teachers and staff from the Dallas school district, “You have to be a Ph.D. in statistics to even comprehend it.” Teachers’ unions like the growth model, but reject its use for performance reviews and merit pay. Said Bolender, “It’s detrimental for education. It’s pulling apart teams of teachers and it doesn’t look at why test scores are low.”

In response to the growing popularity of the growth model, Margaret Spellings, U.S. Secretary of Education, said in a statement, “We are open to new ideas, but when it comes to accountability, we are not taking our eye off the ball.”

Posted by Elizabeth Rich

Teachers Attacked

Reports of assaults against teachers seem to growing, particularly in big city schools. Sometimes they are verbal. Sometimes they are violent physical attacks. NPR’s Fresh Air host Terry Gross speaks with two veteran teachers, Ed Klein and Frank Burd, who were physically assaulted last year in their Philadelphia classrooms. Both Burd and Klein are white and taught at predominantly African American schools; however, neither perceived the incidents to be entirely racially motivated.

Music teacher Klein was relocated to a school one month into the school year when his former school dropped their music program. Entering a new school, with a class that was busy testing the limits and a staff that was overwhelmed, Klein struggled to get control of his classroom. Klein called parents frequently and, for the most part, they were responsive. He even saw changes in student behavior in a few cases. One day, however, a student told him he’d better stop calling home or he’d be sorry. Following that exchange, Klein was sprayed with a fire extinguisher on two consecutive days. On the third day, four students forced him to the floor where he suffered a broken jaw and a concussion.

For his part, after he approached a student to turn down his iPod during class, veteran math teacher Burd remembers little of his attack. Five broken bones and a brain injury later, Burd says, “I don’t feel betrayed by the students, I feel betrayed by the kid who did it.’

Will either teacher return to the classroom? Klein admits to good days and bad days, but is not sure if he will ever teach again. “I’m in a difficult position,” he told Gross. Said Burd, “I need to work. I like to work and I like teaching. I don’t know right now about the classroom. ...”

Posted by Elizabeth Rich

Nearly 20 years ago, as we were preparing to launch this magazine, we talked to hundreds of teachers across the country about their careers and about their aspirations, concerns, and daily challenges. Our working title for the magazine was Professional Teacher, and we were determined not to treat teachers as tall children, but rather to address them as experts whose work is as important to society as that of doctors, lawyers, and other professionals. We would provide them with articles about teaching and learning, research, ideas, innovations, and the larger issues that shape education.

Essentially, what teachers told us was that they weren’t treated as professionals. They didn’t feel adequately prepared for their challenges. They didn’t have much decisionmaking power outside the classroom, and had little control over their professional lives. Neither their working conditions nor their compensation were conducive to their work. But most relevant for us, they said they probably wouldn’t read our magazine because they had little time or energy for anything but the practical demands of the job.

Despite all that, we launched Teacher Magazine because we believed then, as we believe now, that teachers are the key to successful schools and students. None of the many reforms floated in the past two decades will improve schools without competent, committed teachers who are treated as professionals. There has been general agreement that the teaching career path needs to be radically changed. However, that is a daunting challenge that society seems unable or unwilling to meet.

But what if there were another way to make teaching more of a profession? Suppose teachers were in control of their own destiny, empowered to practice their craft like other professionals. Imagine that they could form partnerships, much as lawyers and doctors do, and make their services available under contract to “clients” (i.e., schools). They would hire an administrator to handle noninstructional matters, but teachers would make the educational decisions and would bring new teachers into the “firm,” evaluate them, decide on compensation, and—when necessary—discharge them.

That “imaginary” situation became a reality with the creation of EdVisions Cooperative 13 years ago, when a small group of teachers in Minnesota concluded that “a new model of ‘educational entrepreneurship’ was not only possible, but necessary.” They believed “that teacher leadership is not about power, but about mobilizing the largely untapped attributes of teachers to strengthen student performance by working collaboratively in a shared capacity.”

The founders’ goal was to empower teachers, but they recognized that teaching is not an end in itself. The ultimate goal is to help youngsters grow and learn. To “stay in business,” teacher partnerships must satisfy their clients. That means they must be at the leading edge of their profession, always looking for new, innovative methods.

EdVisions first offered its professional services to the Minnesota New Country School in 1994 and it has become a nationally recognized model for project-based learning. Today there are more than 30 EdVision schools across the country and nearly 2,500 students who are actively engaged, excited, and performing at high levels.

The EdVisions people are the kind of teachers we had in mind when we started this magazine. America desperately needs teachers like these, and we should do whatever is necessary to produce them.

For more information about EdVisions, including a video on project-based learning that made Ron Wolk want to go back to school, visit EdVisions. Several relevant books are also cited on the Web site, including Teachers as Owners, edited by Edward J. Dirkswager and published by Scarecrow Press.

A new public school teacher in North Dakota works for a year on probation before getting job security. For a teacher in Missouri, it's five years.

It's just one example of how policies affecting the teaching profession vary from state to state, according to a report by the National Council on Teacher Quality, a private group in Washington.
Just as the federal No Child Left Behind education law is being rewritten on Capitol Hill, state laws nationwide need reworking, the nonpartisan group says.

"For the most part the current system is a mix of broken, counterproductive and anachronistic policies in need of an overhaul," says the report, which summarizes each state's laws and regulations affecting teachers. The report is scheduled for release Wednesday.

The group found differences in how teachers are evaluated, prepared, licensed and compensated—all factors that affect teaching quality.

Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said the variation in policies makes little sense, but she stopped short of calling for national standards for teachers.
"I've seen some states do some good things that I know wouldn't happen if they were all in the same room trying to do it," Walsh said.

One example of how states differ from each other, and the labor market more broadly, involves teacher evaluations.

While annual reviews may be a fact of life in many businesses, only about a quarter of states require annual evaluations for teachers, according to the report. Hawaii, Missouri and Tennessee let teachers go as long as five years without a formal review, the report says.
And only about half the states require reviews to include a classroom observation.

Richard Ingersoll, a professor of education and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, says that's unwise. "Evaluations are important. These are employees that are working with our children," he said.

But Massachusetts Commissioner of Education David Driscoll said states are reluctant to create too many requirements in this area. In large schools, he said, principals may not have time to review every teacher annually.

The majority of teachers go through undergraduate education programs at colleges or universities. But states, which approve these schools, set weak standards for them, according to the report.

For example, it finds that only nine states—California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Texas and Washington—require aspiring elementary-school teachers to take an introductory American history class while in education school.

"You want to make sure the teacher knows something about the American Revolution and the Civil War," Walsh said.

The report finds many states are making it difficult for people who did not graduate from education schools to become teachers. Barriers include requiring large amounts of coursework and only allowing colleges, not other nonprofits or school districts, to run teacher preparation programs, the report says.

"It's OK to put up criteria of quality and rigor," Driscoll said, adding that states should not "be making people jump through hoops that aren't important." The report gives Massachusetts good marks for bringing people with different backgrounds into teaching.

Similarly, veteran teachers should be able to move easily between states by taking licensing tests showing they meet the new state's standards, the report says. Instead, newcomers are more likely to have to take additional course work, which can expensive and time consuming.
Veteran music teacher Neil Manzenberger knows all about that.

He recently moved to Cornville, Ariz., after teaching music in public schools in Indiana for three decades. The plan was to retire, Manzenberger says, but he couldn't resist the lure of the classroom. "When the school buses started rolling in August, I said, 'Man I miss those kids.'"

When he sought a teaching position, Manzenberger said he was stopped by an Arizona requirement that he take a course on the methods of teaching elementary-school music. While Manzenberger hadn't taken that course as a student, he actually taught it for several years at an Indiana University satellite campus.

After an eight-month dispute, during which Manzenberger said he couldn't even find the required course nearby, he finally got a waiver to teach.

"It was ludicrous," he says. "It was just absolutely the dumbest thing I've ever dealt with."
Even as states are erecting barriers that could prevent qualified people from teaching, they also are making it too easy for unqualified people to get in, the report says.

For example, the authors say states are letting novice teachers into classrooms before they have passed state licensing tests.

Just three states—New Jersey, New Mexico and New York—require new teachers to pass such tests before entering the classroom. Many states give teachers one year to pass, but 20 states let people teach for three years or more without passing, the report says.

"Licensing tests serve a critical purpose," says the report. "They provide the public with assurance that a person meets the minimal qualifications to be a teacher."

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 14, 2007

Contact: Booker T. Stallworth, Communications Director
(360) 956-3482

Teachers and EFF Win Unanimous Victory at U.S. Supreme Court

WASHINGTON, DC—Today the United States Supreme Court announced it has overturned the Washington Supreme Court’s ruling in Washington v. Washington Education Association and Davenport v. Washington Education Association (WEA). The cases are the culmination of a decade’s worth of work by concerned teachers and the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF), a Washington state think tank. The Court's ruling could potentially affect millions of union-represented workers nationwide.

As reported by SCOTUS Blog: "In the final of three decisions on the merits Thursday, the Court ruled that it is not a violation of the First Amendment for a state to bar a labor union representing government employees from using non-union workers' dues for political causes if those workers have not explicitly consented. The result was approved unanimously, but there were three partial concurring votes. The decision, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, was issued in a pair of consolidated cases, Davenport v. Washington Education Association (05-1589) and Washington v. Washington Education Association (05-1657)."

"We are elated that the U.S. Supreme Court has honored the First Amendment rights of teachers by overturning the state Supreme Court’s decision," said Bob Williams, president of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. “The Court understood that the constitutional rights of teachers should be protected and are not superseded by the union’s statutory rights. This ruling will help protect non-member teachers from having their agency fees used on union politics against their will."

At issue in the case is a state statute that required labor organizations to get permission from nonmember workers before using mandatory dues for political purposes. “Nonmembers" are workers who have resigned from the union but are forced to pay collective bargaining fees as a condition of employment.

The WEA admitted to multiple violations during a state investigation and was fined over $590,000 by a Thurston County court.

The WEA later claimed in court that had no 'fiduciary responsibility' to its members and that the law unconstitutionally ‘burdened’ its free speech rights. The Washington Supreme Court agreed.

"The next step is to make sure the law is strongly enforced in state to ensure the WEA and other unions are in compliance. The WEA has been busily attempting to undermine the law while it was under Supreme Court review," Williams said.

Additional Information

For the most up-to-date information, photos, video, key documents related to the cases, and a weblog on the case, please visit www.teachers-vs-union.org.

###

A Theory X manager makes the following general assumptions:

• Work is inherently distasteful to most people, who will attempt to avoid work whenever possible.

• Most people are not ambitious, have little desire for responsibility, and prefer to be directed.

• Most people have little capacity for creativity in solving organizational problems.

• Motivation occurs only at the physiological and security levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

• Most people are self-centered. As a result, they must be closely controlled and often coerced to achieve organizational objectives

• Most people resist change.

• Most people are gullible and not particularly intelligent.

Essentially, Theory X assumes that the primary source of most employee motivation is money, with security as a strong second.

Hard Approach | Soft Approach
Under Theory X, management approaches to motivation can range from a hard approach to a soft approach.

The hard approach to motivation relies on coercion, implicit threats, close supervision, and tight controls -- essentially an environment of command and control. The soft appoach is to be permissive and seek harmony with the hope that in return employees will cooperate when asked to do so. However, neither of these extremes is optimal. The hard approach results in hostility, purposely low-output, and hard-line union demands. The soft approach results in increasing desire for greater reward in exchange for diminishing work output.

It would appear that the optimal approach to human resource management would be lie somewhere between these extremes. However, McGregor asserts that neither approach is appropriate since the fundamental assumptions of Theory X are incorrect.

The Problem with Theory X
Drawing on Maslow's Needs Hierarchy, McGregor argues that a need, once satisfied, no longer motivates. Under Motivation Theory X, the firm relies on money and benefits to satisfy employees' lower needs, and once those needs are satisfied the source of motivation is lost. Theory X management styles, in fact, hinder the satisfaction of higher-level needs.

Consequently, the only way that employees can attempt to satisfy their higher level needs in their work is by seeking more compensation, so it is quite predictable that they will focus on monetary rewards. While money may not be the most effective way to self-fulfillment, in a Theory X environment it may be the only way. Under Theory X, people use work to satisfy their lower needs, and seek to satisfy their higher needs in their leisure time. Unfortunately, employees can be most productive when their work goals and higher level needs are in alignment.

McGregor makes the point that a command and control environment is not effective because it relies on lower needs as levers of motivation, but in modern society those needs already are satisfied and thus no longer motivate. In this situation, one would expect employees to dislike their work, avoid responsibility, have no interest in organizational goals, resist change, etc., thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. From this reasoning, McGregor proposed an alternative: Theory Y.

Motivational Theory Y
The higher-level needs of esteem and self-actualization are continuing needs in that they are never completely satisfied. As such, it is these higher-level needs through which employees can best be motivated.

In strong contrast to Theory X, a Theory Y manager makes the following general assumptions:

• Work can be as natural as play if the conditions are favorable.

• People will be self-directed and creative to meet their work and organizational objectives if they are committed to them.

• People will be committed to their quality and productivity objectives if rewards are in place that address higher needs such as self-fulfillment.

• The capacity for creativity spreads throughout organizations.

• Most people can handle responsibility because creativity and ingenuity are common in the population.

• Under these conditions, people will seek responsibility.

Under these assumptions, there is an opportunity to align personal goals with organizational goals by using the employee's own need for fulfillment as the motivator. McGregor stressed that Theory Y management does not imply a soft approach.

McGregor recognized that some people may not have reached the level of maturity assumed by Theory Y and therefore may need tighter controls that can be relaxed as the employee develops.

Applying Theory Y Management - Business Implications
If Theory Y holds true, an organization can use these principles of scientific management to improve employee motivation:

• Decentralization and Delegation - If firms decentralize control and reduce the number of levels of management, managers will have more subordinates and consequently will be forced to delegate some responsibility and decision making to them.

• Job Enlargement - Broadening the scope of an employee's job adds variety and opportunities to satisfy ego needs.

• Participative Management - Consulting employees in the decision making process taps their creative capacity and provides them with some control over their work environment.

• Performance Appraisals - Having the employee set objectives and participate in the process of evaluating how well they were met.

If properly implemented, such an environment would result in a high level of motivation as employees work to satisfy their higher level personal needs through their jobs.

Here is the story you have waited for.

I know, it seems ridiculous that CCEA would be doing this while refusing to represent teachers and negotiate a decent contract. We hope you really think about the implications of what they are doing.

According to several Clark County Education Association officials, the money in question has been accounted for. Yes, we’re talking about the mysterious whereabouts of those exorbitant tuition fees drained from the pockets of hard-working teachers for the Center for Teacher Excellence program, also known as Advanced Studies Certification. In a recent conversation with union insiders, it was revealed that Executive Director John Jasonek has commented he would be more than happy to show the public the union books on CTE. However, he doesn’t, according to our sources, want the public or the union rank-and-file to view CCEA’s overall operating books. Apparently he explained to several officers at a CCEA Senate and Executive Board meeting that the union has $1,000,000 tucked away in various accounts, so the UniServ representatives won’t know about the extra money. (Yes, that’s one million dollars!) It seems these UniServ reps have been seeking raises, and Jasonek has different plans for the stashed cash. Remember the CTE program? It’s the one where teachers paid $3,600 to receive a $3,000 raise; while the state-run program, RPDP, had been charging $810 for the same teacher raise.

After months of Teachers4Change following this pile of money, some courageous teachers have started coming forward with revelatory information. As usual, CCEA tried to close ranks to cover up the dirt in this story, typical of their behavior, but, in this case, they haven’t been able to keep the truth from coming out. Executive Director Jasonek in a board meeting was heard telling the audience that CCEA is using CTE money for a union building fund. Apparently CCEA wants to build an ivory tower to house their hard-working association officers. The idea is to house all union facilities in one central location-- i.e. Association Offices, Teachers Health Trust, etc. Considering what a fine job the union has done to serve the interests of teachers for the past eight years (we jest!), this building fund may be a tough pill to swallow for the average, suffering rank-and-file teacher.

While teachers are trying desperately to figure out how to climb up a last notch on the already-pathetic teacher pay scale by meeting the heavy financial requirement of the CTE program, CCEA is saving for a brand-spanking-new building from the pockets of these teachers. Even further, teachers who are not union members and taking these CTE classes are also contributing significantly to the CCEA building fund. According to one source, Jasonek was happy to report that non-union teachers would be, unwittingly, bankrolling the new CCEA building. In fact, the source said, that was one of Jasonek’s main selling points. And what do you think the name of the new union building is going to be? Hmmm. Does the name Jasonek ring a bell?

Maybe the time has come for teachers (both members and non-members) to bring
a halt to deception like this. Isn’t it bad enough teachers keep coming out on the bottom, over and over again, with this union in charge? Perhaps the time is here for teachers to start paving a new road; to head in a different direction. Because teachers deserve so much better than what they’ve been getting from CCEA.

However, by far the more important issue is who caused AB459’s untimely death and forced its withdrawal. My knowledge and research of many events, experience and observance during the past two years make me believe that this killing of AB459 was committed by the CCEA at the insistence of the Clark County School District. The basis of this belief/position is the following.

1. For months, Mr. Segerblom has told me we needed just one Senate Republican vote to get this bill through the Senate as he would be able to get all the Democrats. It was my responsibility as a Republican to get at least the one Republican vote. I worked hard on this from November to May 16, and it appeared at the end we may have had the one Republican vote--better yet, it was on the Senate Education Committee. The degree of difficulty with the Republicans was not their unwillingness to help teachers but justified animosity toward the teachers’ union.

2. On May 9 at the Senate hearing, Mr. Segerblom reaffirmed we were definitely “very close” to winning if we could get the one Republican vote.

3. On May 9 at the hearing, it appeared the CCSD was quite concerned at losing the Senate vote as they put on a full-scale “dog and pony show” urging the Bill’s defeat with numerous witnesses from several educational organizations, CCSD’s lead counsel, a representative of the administrators’ union, and CCSD’s chief lobbyist. School Board members were present in Carson City and in the Las Vegas audience, and there was at least one major CCSD employee at the hearing. They had both rooms stacked and at the hearing one Republican on the committee made statements that had to cause concern to the CCSD. AT THIS HEARING NEITHER THE CCEA NOR THE NSEA SPOKE IN FAVOR OF THE BILL NOR ADVOCATED FOR IT IN ANY WAY.

4. Within days thereafter (May 12), I received good information that at least one Democrat on the Committee was going to vote against the Bill. That Senator is the one who owes her election entirely to the teachers’ union and teachers money as the union contributed approximately $350,000 of teachers’ dues money to get her elected even though she was at the time employed by the CCSD. Wouldn’t you think that the union could get her vote if they wanted to?

5. In my May 16 pointed conversation with Mr. Segerblom, he emotionally informed me that every Democrat on the committee (Weiner, Horsford, and Woodhouse) were going to vote against the bill guaranteeing its defeat. Some of his other comments about the union and other matters were enough to tell me the union had let him down and put him in a position that he had to walk away from the Bill and not force a vote in the Committee. I ask you and the world who else but the teachers’ union has such power over an Assembly Education Committee Chairperson and an Assemblyman Bill sponsor who has guided the bill to a 42-0 vote in the Assembly to force the killing of this Bill by withdrawal.

6. It is clearly evident that the beneficiaries of this effort by the teachers’ union is the Clark County School District and the three Democrat Senators on the Committee who were saved from having to vote. I do not believe that the four Republican members of the committee were at all hesitant to vote.

7. Most condemning of the teachers’ union is that we know that in important prior acts it has favored the CCSD over its dues paying teacher members.

Conclusion--I am more convinced than ever that the teachers of the Clark County School District have no friends in the education system in Clark County. Even the Nevada PTA with enthusiasm spoke against the bill at the recent hearing though two of its past presidents (Parnell and Smith) and its incoming President (Mo Dennis) as members of the Assembly voted for the Bill. In my well-considered opinion CCSD teachers should now consider four possible actions. These are:

a) Seek and obtain employment elsewhere. b) If you stay teaching in Clark County, seek out union representation other than the CCEA/NSEA as it is foolish to keep spending over $600 per year to have that money used to work against you. In this process be very careful that all your union needs and coverages are secure and safe before making such a change. As a disclaimer, I do not recommend, support, nor am I affiliated with any union of any type. c) Turn your frustration into “action energy” and support with participation all efforts to bring relief to Clark County teachers, and d) If for no better reason than humanity, get the word to teachers that are considering coming to the CCSD to be aware of the teacher abuse problems and issues in the CCSD.

Sincerely,
Charles E. Thompson

Published in Print: May 2, 2007
Leaders’ Blogs Offer Candid Views on Life In Schools

Principals, district chiefs are venturing into the world of online postings.
By Jeff Archer

Kimberly Moritz, the principal at Gowanda High School in western New York state, had never heard the word “blog” until she learned to set one up at an education conference last July. But when her third posting to her online journal drew 18 comments, she was hooked.

Since then, she’s posted entries two or three times a week, provoking online debates on student cellphone bans, teaching The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, teacher recruitment, and cheating. Comments come from students, teachers, and administrators, near and far.

“It’s very helpful for me professionally, to be able to organize my thoughts on a subject, to write about them, and then hear from my readers,” said Ms. Moritz, 43, whose blog, G-Town Talks, regularly gets hundreds of visitors a day.

Ms. Moritz is part of what, by many accounts, is still just a small community. While the total number of blogs has been pegged at more than 70 million, some experienced education bloggers estimate that the number of school leaders getting in on the act is in the hundreds.

That’s likely to grow, though, as early adopters spread the gospel of blogging. The American Association of School Administrators and the National Association of Elementary School Principals recently held their first sessions on blogging at their annual conventions.

The few principals and superintendents who do blog see great value in the tool. The ease of posting new items on the Web makes for a nimble form of communication. And by allowing public comments, the medium builds relationships—within school communities and among them, they say.

Open Dialogue
To be sure, blogs have pitfalls. They demand frequent updating to bring visitors back again and again. They represent a more open form of dialogue than administrators are used to. Some administrators, in fact, have shut down public commenting when things got out of hand.

Administrators Who Blog …
From Feb. 16, 2007:
“The Worthless Lesson Plan…
I say that we should start a revolution and quit making teachers fill out lesson plans for us but instead prepare for great classroom instruction. … "
Blog: Dr. Jan’s Blog;
Jan Borelli, Principal, Westwood Elementary School, Oklahoma City, Okla.

From March 27, 2007:
“Potential New Hires …
I’m more convinced than ever that teaching requires risk takers, people with passion about something outside of the classroom, like their hockey team, the band they’ve been playing in for years, or fish. … "
Blog: G-Town Talks;
Kimberly Moritz, Principal, Gowanda High School, Gowanda, N.Y.

From Feb. 6, 2007:
“Parent Conference From Across the Globe
… I put him on speaker phone and he participated in the parent conference from Iraq. It was mind-boggling that this father could take the time out from his stressful job in the middle of a war zone to talk with us about how his child was doing in math and reading. … "
Blog: Mr. P’s Blog;
Steve Poling, Principal, DeGrazia Elementary School, Tucson, Ariz.

From Feb. 26, 2007:
“So What Would You Tell the Congressman?
… Someone at the federal decision-making level needs to spend some time IN the classrooms of today and see if this level of ‘accountability’ is worth it. … "
Blog: The Wawascene;
Mark Stock, Superintendent, Wawasee Community Schools, Syracuse, Ind.
SOURCE: Education Week

But Scott McLeod, a Minneapolis-based educational technology expert, said the benefits outweigh the risks. Since last fall, he’s been helping principals set up blogs for free, and in February he started a blog written by administrators called LeaderTalk.

“People are talking about your organizations anyway,” Mr. McLeod said. “Would you rather they talk behind your back, and you don’t know about it? Or, would you rather it be in a way that you can respond to, and have other community members see it?”

Blogs, short for “Web logs,” emerged in the 1990s when new software made it much easier to publish on the Web. That meant individuals could then quickly post their thoughts, and their online readers could just as quickly react to them by posting their own comments.

In the field of education, the first to make the greatest use of blogs were writers, teachers, and technology experts, said James Farmer, the founder of Edublogs, a 2-year-old nonprofit service that hosts about 70,000 education-related blogs. “There are probably only a few hundred school administrators [with blogs], but it’s only a matter of time before it explodes, like it has in every other part of the edublog community,” said Mr. Farmer, who is based in Melbourne, Australia.

Among those principals and superintendents who do blog, the motives vary. Some blog to connect with other administrators facing similar challenges; others see their writing mostly as a way to communicate with their local constituencies.

In January, Mark Stock, the superintendent of the 3,400-student Wawasee community school district in Indiana, used his blog to send out word that students sent to a hospital after a bus accident were not seriously hurt. But he also posts alerts about education policy.

“My opinion comes through, but I’m not over the top with it,” said Mr. Stock, who sometimes conducts informal polls on such topics as the No Child Left Behind Act on his blog, called The Wawascene.

“I let the people on the comments take the sides,” he said. Principals who blog often do so for professional development. For instance, Steve Poling, the principal at DeGrazia Elementary School in Tucson, Ariz., has posted about how he landed his job, his first as a school leader, on his blog, Mr. P Talks.

Meanwhile, a veteran principal, Jan Borelli of Westwood Elementary School in Oklahoma City, offers lessons from more experience on Dr. Jan's Blog. Among her tips: Don’t think of teachers as friends, and don’t try to change anything your first year as principal.

“I’ve been a principal for a lot of years, and I always thought, ‘Man, if someone had just told me that,’ ” said Ms. Borelli. “People now e-mail me and say, ‘What would you do in this situation?’ and ‘Thank you for what you said.’ ”

To blog takes time, though. Blogs that aren’t refreshed at least a couple of times a week quickly lose their audience, experts on the phenomenon say. Many of the best-read blogs also are written in a personal style that many administrators may not be comfortable with.

Many administrators who blog have been instructed by their school boards or lawyers to add disclaimers saying that the views they express are their own, not their districts’. Many post rules for making comments, such as banning profanity.

Turning Ugly
Still, comments can turn ugly, particularly because they can be made essentially anonymously. Mr. Stock briefly pulled the plug on his blog when comments were made that included personal attacks following the departure of a popular high school football coach.
Clayton Wilcox, the superintendent of the 148,000-student Pinellas County, Fla., school district, retired a blog he’d run for more than a year last spring after a number of episodes in which comments became mean-spirited.

Overall, he said, blogging was a positive experience, providing him with useful input and letting him share his decisionmaking process with constituents. But, he added: “I was hearing from enough people that it was an embarrassment, and when I went back and looked at it, it was.”

In one such case, some racist remarks were made in comments on his blog after news that police had handcuffed a 5-year-old African-American girl at a Pinellas County elementary school—a video of which was made public. The comments were quickly removed.

The St. Petersburg Times, which conceived of the idea for the blog and hosted it on the online version of the newspaper, later relaunched it with a new format with multiple hosts, including Mr. Wilcox. But it has been largely inactive in recent months.

“I understand totally why administrators shy away from doing it,” said Will Richardson, a Flemington, N.J.-based education consultant and the author of a book on using Web tools, including blogs, in the classroom. “It’s risky, or at least it’s perceived as risky.”

But he and others argue that any potential downside needn’t scare administrators off. Not only can inappropriate comments be removed, but administrators also needn’t turn on the comment feature at all if they want to use their blogs just to let others in on their own thinking.

Ms. Moritz, the Gowanda High School principal, agrees that blogging, on balance, is good for administrators, and believes that the more open she is, the better. On whether to teach students Huckleberry Finn, she wrote, “They HATE it.” On recruiting teachers, she wrote, “Those who only want to play it safe … apply elsewhere.”

One of the thorniest issues dealt with on her blog involved a student at her school who had found answers to old state exam questions on the Web and used them to ace a school test that had the same items. She titled her posting on the case “Cheating or initiative?”

The posting drew 29 comments, mostly from students. Some said the student involved—who wasn’t named—should be punished. Some criticized how the exam was given. Ms. Moritz replied that the student hadn’t cheated, and pledged new procedures for test administration.

“It was somewhat difficult to manage, and sort of consumed us for a couple of days,” said the principal. “But I think if I hadn’t had the blog, the students would have gone the rest of the year getting angry about it. I’d rather deal with it than have it go on.”

Coverage of leadership is supported in part by a grant from The Wallace Foundation, at www.wallacefoundation.org.

Teacher Magazine

Ask the Teacher

Policymakers survey educators' work needs.

By Steven Saint

In 2004, a group of teachers at Salem Middle School in Apex, North Carolina, approached then-principal Matthew Wight with a plan to overhaul the school’s grading system. They wanted a measurement that would reflect students’ progress on multiple specific skills.

Bill Ferriter, who teaches 6th graders at Salem, didn’t expect Wight to approve the plan. “We knew he’d be the one who would have to defend it to angry parents,” Ferriter says. Much to his surprise, Wight listened, decided the idea would benefit students, and put it into effect. “That was a defining moment in our school,” says Ferriter, who describes Salem as “a place where teachers are empowered to make critical decisions.”

Ferriter’s satisfaction is shared by other instructors at Salem, which is why the school was recognized this year as a model in North Carolina’s campaign to improve teachers’ working conditions.

Officials in North Carolina began surveying teachers in 2001 to determine the causes of high turnover; they asked about empowerment, leadership, time, facilities and resources, and professional development. The data revealed a trend that really got policymakers’ attention: In schools where teachers were most content, student achievement was also high.

North Carolina teachers have now been surveyed three times, says Eric Hirsch, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Teaching Quality, which the state hired to analyze the survey results. (Ferriter is also a member of the Teacher Leaders Network, a project of CTQ and a partner of Teacher Magazine.) Other states and districts have followed North Carolina’s lead: CTQ has conducted similar surveys in Arizona, Kansas, Ohio, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Clark County, Nevada.

Across these areas, one of the biggest differences between low- and high-performing schools is in the number of teachers who reported that “an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect” exists. “That’s the common denominator,” Hirsch says. School safety, planning time, and teachers’ ability to make decisions about instructional materials and techniques are other important factors.

The data also show that principals’ perceptions of conditions at their schools tend to be much rosier than teachers’. In North Carolina, for example, nearly all principals reported that teachers are central to educational decisions, while only half of teachers felt this to be true.

Meanwhile, teachers were more likely to stay at their schools if they believed principals were trying to improve conditions.

The survey results have just started to spur real change. North Carolina has formed a Teacher Working Conditions Advisory Board to lead the charge for transforming school environments. The state also recently ordered school improvement teams to develop plans to provide duty-free lunch periods and at least five hours of instructional planning per week for every teacher. Clark County, Nevada, has formed a Teaching and Learning Conditions Team of four highly trained teachers who work full time helping schools, and Virginia set aside funds to recruit teachers and improve conditions in hard-to-staff schools.

CTQ is documenting best practices in schools where principals and teachers are working together on reforms. At Salem, Ferriter knows firsthand how important working conditions are for teacher retention. He credits his freedom to make classroom-level decisions and the say he has on professional development and school policies with keeping him in the classroom after 14 years. “It makes the job far more professionally satisfying,” he says. “We probably have the best teaching conditions in the state, and we’re a magnet for accomplished teachers.”

By Lynn Olson

This article was originally published in Education Week.

Like a growing number of other teachers nationwide, Danna S. Clinton has taken on a variety of leadership roles in her school, from chairing the science department to helping with the school’s improvement plan. But she has one thing many of her colleagues do not have: a teacher-leadership endorsement from the state of Louisiana testifying to her skills.

“I’ve been teaching a long time,” said Ms. Clinton, a 27-year veteran and a physics teacher at the 2,400-student Lafayette High School in Lafayette, La. “So I thought this would be something new for me to do, stepping out of my comfort zone.”

Louisiana is one of a handful of states that have created or are considering adding endorsements to their state licensing systems that would formally recognize teachers who have taken on leadership roles outside their own classrooms. Illinois adopted a teacher-leadership endorsement last year, and Georgia has new rules that went into effect April 15. Other states, such as Delaware and Kentucky, are considering similar steps.

Advocates cite a number of reasons for such endorsements: They recognize teachers who have already assumed leadership functions in their schools. They make the principal’s job more doable by encouraging other teachers to take on such tasks. They create options for individuals who want to pursue leadership roles but are not interested in becoming principals. And they can serve as a pathway for future school leaders.

“These teacher-leadership roles are a natural pipeline into future principal and central-office leadership roles,” said Ann L. Duffy, the director of policy for the Atlanta-based Georgia’s Leadership Institute for School Improvement, a public-private partnership.

“There’s also a very clear need for building-level principals to recognize that leadership is more than just one person,” she said, “so there’s a need to codify, as well as create, incentives to help distribute leadership.”
Purely Optional

The actual requirements for the endorsements, which recognize a specific area of expertise on top of the basic license required to become a teacher, vary across states.

In Louisiana, teacher leaders must complete six hours of graduate coursework in educational leadership that can also be used toward a master’s degree. In Illinois, teachers can earn the endorsement by completing a master’s program in teacher leadership. But those in the state who are certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards or who have already demonstrated leadership experience in their schools can complete a smaller sequence of courses.

To receive state approval for offering such programs, Illinois institutions of higher education must submit program descriptions to the state department of education that specify how the courses will enhance teachers’ ability to improve instructional programs, provide effective professional development and leadership to their peers, and help foster a school environment conducive to learning.

In Georgia, the endorsement programs must address a variety of leadership functions, including how to develop and implement a shared school vision, provide effective instructional programs based on Georgia standards, and design comprehensive professional-growth plans for adults.

“The things that Georgia codified really center around creating or leading change,” Ms. Duffy said. “The idea is that as you take on those responsibilities outside the classroom, you are recognized and can apply them in a performance-based certification program.”

One thing is true across all the states so far: The endorsements are purely optional. Teachers don’t need to hold an endorsement to assume leadership roles in their schools. And the endorsements do not assure a teacher of any extra pay, unless a district chooses to provide it.

“Practically speaking, there’s no money attached to it,” said Ms. Duffy of Georgia. “It’s up to the district to determine whether or not the endorsements are required for certain roles and responsibilities.”

Erika L. Hunt, the project director of the Illinois-State Action for Education Leadership Project, part of a 22-state initiative sponsored by the New York City-based Wallace Foundation, said that “at some point, we would like to give some state incentive funding, but we weren’t able to at this point.”

“Right now, it’s not really anything more than paper,” said Nathan M. Roberts, the director of graduate studies in education at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “A principal, we hope, will look at it and say, ‘You’ve got this; you’re valuable.’ But there’s nothing built into the Lafayette system, or others, right now that says these people are one notch up and they’ve got priority.”

Even so, he said, his university probably has 10 times as many people interested in the teacher-leadership endorsement as in becoming school principals. “These people care about their school. They want the school to improve,” he said, “but they don’t want to become a principal. They want to teach, but they want to have some impact.”

While the endorsements aren’t mandatory, said Jo Anderson Jr., the executive director of the 130,000-member Illinois Education Association, he could foresee local bargaining agreements using the credential to mark teachers for salary increases, perhaps as part of career-ladder systems.

“But you can’t do that if the credential doesn’t exist,” he said.

“We think there will very definitely be a demand,” he added. “There are a lot of young, and more seasoned, teachers who would love to have more responsibility. … This whole reform strategy ultimately comes down to a single sentence: The more powerful the adult learning community, the more powerful the student learning. And that takes all different kinds of leadership.”
Rigidity a Worry

Anything that prompts the field to understand and encourage teachers to exercise more leadership is good, according to Joseph F. Murphy, a professor of education at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tenn.

But he cautioned that the endorsements could have a downside if they rigidify the leadership opportunities for teachers and limit those roles to a small number of individuals.

“How do you create opportunities for teachers to work together around the important stuff of schooling, where they can move in and out of leadership fluently depending on their expertise and wisdom?” he said. “That seems to me to be the most powerful element of teacher leadership. If it just sets up another set of roles and responsibilities, it will be helpful, but it won’t be as helpful as it could be.”

For Ms. Clinton, at least, the experience has been positive.

As part of a teacher-leadership institute created by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the physics teacher helped her school gather information from teachers and students about their perceptions of block scheduling. That research led the teacher-leadership team at her school, which completed the institute as a cohort, to design an upcoming workshop for their colleagues about how to use the 90-minute teaching blocks more effectively. The teacher leaders also meet regularly with one of Lafayette High’s assistant principals to help with the school’s improvement plan.

Ms. Clinton, who said she’s gained a new appreciation for the work of building leaders, is now completing her master’s degree in educational leadership and considering becoming a principal herself.

Once she completes the program in June, she said, she’s thinking of applying to become an assistant principal.

“I was a little nervous at first,” she said, “but I think I’m going to do it. I think that I would like to go ahead and be an administrator.”

Day Wednesday Date May 9, 2007 Time 1:30 p.m. Room 2135

If you cannot attend the meeting, you can listen to it live over the Internet. The address for the legislative website is http://www.leg.state.nv.us. For audio broadcasts, click on the link “Listen to Live Meetings.”

Note: We are pleased to make reasonable accommodations for members of the public who are disabled and wish to attend the meeting. If special arrangements for the meeting are necessary, please notify the Senate Committee on Human Resources and Education at (775) 684-1480.
(R#) Indicates the reprint number of the bill/resolution being considered.
PLEASE PROVIDE 15 COPIES OF YOUR EXHIBITS AND NOTES.
FIRST REVISED AGENDA

A.B. 70 (R1) Revises provisions governing the compensation of the members of the boards of trustees of school districts. (BDR 34-878)

A.B. 432 (R1) Revises provisions governing the suspension and termination of certain educational personnel for failure to maintain a valid license. (BDR 34-1192)

A.B. 459 (R1) Makes various changes relating to teachers. (BDR 34-787)

by Chip Mosher

SHE WAS ONE OF THE BEST TEACHERS I'D EVER SEEN ANYWHERE, intelligent and passionate about education. She had 19 years' experience in the Clark County School District, plus academic standards higher than the Himalayas. Her accelerated-placement honors science students, who loved her, often graduated from high school with as much knowledge as students in advanced college science programs. One day, while I was teaching in an adjacent hallway, she walked into my classroom, stopped and stood shaking uncontrollably, then shit her pants in front of my class.

"Mr. Mosher, I think Ms. Competence just shit her pants," one student discreetly whispered to me.

For the previous month she had been tortured by a supervisor, another woman, under the school principal's orders. To harass her, the supervisor would bolt into her room unannounced constantly throughout the school day, to check Ms. Competence's grade book, lesson plans, attendance sheets and so forth. All of which were always perfect.

Competence's crime? She had approached her principal, a man, to dispute her supervisor's annual evaluation of her. In the evaluation -- which is placed permanently in a teacher's employment records -- was this phrase: "Ms. Competence is too emotional for a teacher." (Footnote: Her principal and supervisor both had the intellect of a rutabaga.)

For questioning this one sentence in her evaluation and, subsequently, the administration's authority, Competence's honors classes were ripped from her schedule the following year. Instead, the principal forced her to teach bonehead science classes -- excessively large groups of 9th graders who had behavioral problems and loathed science. When the teachers' union failed to represent her competently against such brutal intimidation, a common story, Competence left the district. Why? Because her standards were higher than the Himalayas.

Thousands of teachers in Clark County have been treated as shabbily as, or worse than, Ms. Competence by the district and union. Combine this with the abusively low wages for teachers here, and you have the recipe for a mass exodus of educational talent from the valley.

To deal with this issue, that biennial carnival of crackheads in Carson City, our state Legislature, has been attempting to create, through Assembly Bill 459, a Teacher Bill of Rights. Apparently the U.S. Constitution hasn't been enough to protect teachers.

AB 459 is a legislative confession that the school district has been operating as a terrorist organization to destroy teachers. Unfortunately, this Teacher Bill of Rights is a clever ploy to divert the public's attention from the fact that the Legislature itself has been terrorizing teachers financially by refusing to raise the revenue needed to pay them a living wage in Las Vegas. Although AB 459 promises local teachers the right to legal representation in meetings with administrators, how many teachers on pitifully substandard salaries will be able to afford a lawyer? It's a bill without bite, created to give an impression that legislators have been doing something for teachers, when they haven't. Even with these bogus rights, abuse of teachers by vicious principals will continue. What teachers really need is a Bill of Bites -- to empower them to deal with the dipshits running our schools.

A Teacher Bill of Bites:

1) If an administrator looks at a teacher cross-eyed, or worse, the teacher can lean into the administrator's face and say, "Bite me, asshole!"

2) Any teacher unhappy with an evaluation can rewrite the evaluation to her liking, then call Murder, Inc. to hire a Luca Brasi-type for her evaluation meeting. With the Luca-type holding a gun to her supervisor's head, the teacher can say, "Either your signature or your brains will be on my new evaluation."

3) For protection, a teacher has the right to invite a suicide bomber to any administrative hearing.

4) When principals disrespect a teacher, the teacher can say, "Mess with me again and I'll kill ya -- by making you watch American Idol reruns of Sanjaya Malakar over Christmas holidays."

5) (And for my friend, the incontinent Ms. Competence): If confronted by an inept administrator, a teacher has the right to reach into her own underwear to pull out fresh feces and wing it at the administrator's forehead while saying, "Fuck you, shit for brains!"

Too much emotional and financial violence against teachers has crippled education here. Teachers don't need no stinking Bill of Rights. They need something with more bite. Can you spell baseball bats, kiddies?

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher.

Next crop could include middle and high schools

By ANTONIO PLANAS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
April 27, 2007

Principals and teachers of at least four more Clark County School District campuses will get to make more of the decisions regarding their schools in the fall, Superintendent Walt Rulffes said Thursday.

Rulffes is to meet today with regional superintendents and other district administrators to formulate a plan for choosing the school system's next empowerment schools.

Rulffes said that although there hasn't been any scientific evidence of school improvement, anecdotal evidence is strong that the schools will produce higher student achievement.

"We want to continue to expand empowerment schools," Rulffes said. "The early signs are very favorable and we want to at least double the schools."

You can read the entire article here.

Instructors would gain new rights

By ED VOGEL
REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY -- Fewer Clark County teachers will leave their jobs early because of rights they would gain in a bill that won unanimous approval Friday in the Assembly, its sponsor said.

"This will provide job security for teachers," said Assemblyman Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas. "In my experience, the morale (among teachers) is very bad. One reason is their salaries, and the other is they are tired of how they are treated."

Under Assembly Bill 459, teachers could bring a representative, such as a lawyer, with them when an administrator holds a hearing on their performance or discusses complaints against them. The hearings could be tape-recorded.

In addition, the bill would require the school district to develop a policy forbidding its administrators from "intimidating, humiliating, abusing or mistreating teachers."

Administrators who violate the policy would be subject to loss of pay and suspension.

Also, the school district could not transfer teachers to other schools as a form of discipline.

The bill would apply only to the Clark County School District.
The teachers bill of rights was one of about a dozen bills passed Friday in the Assembly. Members spent most of the day approving amendments to dozens of other bills on which they will vote Monday and Tuesday.

Under a legislative rule, most bills must pass one of the two houses of the Legislature by Tuesday night or they will be declared dead.

A lawyer who often represents teachers in disputes, Segerblom said during an earlier hearing that the Clark County School District hired 9,500 new teachers in the past four years. During the same period, he said it lost 6,000 teachers who quit, retired early or were fired.

"You want to treat the teacher with dignity and respect so they will stick around," he said.

Segerblom said he thinks his bill will win approval in the Republican-controlled Senate because all 15 Assembly Republicans backed the bill. He speculated teachers who feel they have been abused have been contacting all legislators.

In a floor speech, Assembly Minority Leader Garn Mabey, R-Las Vegas, said he hopes the bill will help teachers who for one reason or another have been deciding to leave the school district.

"If they work hard in that school, they deserve to stay in that school," Mabey said.

It wasn’t her teenage students who drove Meghan Sharp out of teaching—it was the crippling inflexibility of her administrators.

All the innovative curriculum ideas and field trips she proposed to engage her 10th grade biology students were promptly shot down, and she left the profession after just two years.

“I still enjoyed teaching, but it was a constant battle with the administration,” says Sharp, who worked in an urban district in northern New Jersey. “I had to do things like submit weekly lesson plans. There was a lot of bureaucracy.” She now goes by her maiden name and asked Teacher Magazine not to identify her old school because she works as an education policy analyst.

According to a recent report on teacher attrition by the federal National Center for Education Statistics, her predicament—and her departure—are common in the profession. Among former teachers who took noneducation jobs, 64 percent said they have more professional autonomy now than when they taught. Only 11 percent said they’d had more influence over policies at school than in their current jobs.

65%: Proportion of former public school teachers who say they're better able to balance work and life now that they're working outside the education field.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education; National Center for Education Statistics Teacher Follow-up Survey.

The survey, based on interviews with more than 7,000 current and former teachers, also found widespread problems with workloads and general working conditions, and it notes that the percentage of teachers abandoning the classroom continues to grow. Among public school teachers, that proportion reached 8 percent in the 2004-05 school year—up from 6 percent in 1988-89.

The problem, experts say, is that teaching has gotten harder.
“As states have increased their reform orientation and their standards and accountability, a good chunk of that falls on the shoulders of teachers,” says Margaret Plecki, an associate professor in educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. Those changes, she notes, add up to increased pressure to perform.

In such a climate, teaching may not feel as rewarding, says Barry Farber, professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “My sense is that these numbers reflect the fact that many teachers are still struggling to feel consequential—to feel that their efforts are making a difference.”

The NCES study also showed that less-experienced teachers were particularly at risk of fleeing: 20 percent of public school teachers with no prior full-time teaching experience left during 2004-05—more than double the overall rate.

Jim Ahrens, chief operating officer at Resources for Indispensable Schools and Educators, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that helps public schools hire and retain teachers in low-income communities, says new teachers need extra help. “[They] are still trying to adjust to the rigors of teaching. It’s a very demanding profession, and those teachers are often left unsupported,” he says.

But the University of Washington’s Plecki points out that young people in all fields generally change jobs early in their careers. As shown by the NCES study, she says, “The vast majority [of teachers] are still in the classroom [after five years].”

By Aaron Dalton

There’s a venerable legend about inventing the high-tech world’s Next Big Thing: All you need is to do is disappear into your garage with a computer and a really terrific idea, and what you come out with may change the world. Scaled down to the teaching world, and allowing for a few variations in time and place—it’s not the late 1970s, and New York City has few garages of the type Microsoft founder Bill Gates or Apple co-creator Steve Jobs did their fiddling in—that’s what former teacher Paul Edelman has in mind with teacherspayteachers.com.

Click here for more.

Ex-judge says school district abuses teachers

Thompson backs teacher bill of rights

By ED VOGEL
REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU
CARSON CITY -- A former district judge charged Monday that the Clark County School District is not able to hire enough teachers because administrators too frequently abuse the teachers they already have.

Charles E. Thompson told the Assembly Education Committee that the school district's "propaganda ministry" works overtime to convince people the teacher shortage is caused by lower salaries and a "stingy Legislature."

But he said in reality many teachers leave because of the district's policy and practice of "mistreating, abusing and demeaning its teachers." He said an "atmosphere of fear" exists in the teacher community.

Thompson, a judge for 20 years and Clark County assistant district attorney for six years, spoke on behalf of Assemblyman Tick Segerblom's Assembly Bill 459 in a four-hour meeting that ended after 7 p.m..
The bill would create a bill of rights for teachers, including written policies to prevent intimidation and mistreatment.

Former Nevada Teacher of the year Jamie Kinder said in an e-mail message given to the committee that she left Nevada for Colorado because the district "was not dedicated to education, but instead was dedicated to misappropriation of funds, visionless postulates and disorganization."
"In no way will I ever recommend CCSD to any educator that I ever come across," she added.

Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, said the school district needed to hire 9,500 new teachers in the past four years. During the same period, he said the district has lost 6,000 teachers. "You want to treat the teacher with dignity and respect so they will stick around," Segerblom said.

Segerblom is a lawyer who often represents teachers in cases against the school district.

Education Chairwoman Bonnie Parnell, D-Carson City, did not take an immediate vote on the bill. Parnell said a work session will be scheduled for the bill next week. The bill must be approved by the committee by April 13 or it will be declared dead for the remainder of the legislative session.

Rose McKinney James, a lobbyist for the school district, said the incidents outlined by Segerblom and Thompson should have been dealt with through the district's collective bargaining agreement with the teachers' union.

"These matters are addressed through the negotiation process," she said. "We believe it is effective and balanced."

But Parnell, a former teacher, said she realizes the matters should have been disposed by contract agreements, but they apparently were not.
"How do we solve the problem if people are not following the contract?" she asked. "Some of these things should not be happening. The question is why."

Parnell requested McKinney James meet with Segerblom to try to reach an agreement.

During the hearing, Thompson released a bulky binder of information that he said detailed abuse by administrators against faithful teachers.
One first-grade teacher, Thompson's wife, La Verne, said she has taught 17 years in Clark County and loves her job.

But she said her principal decided two years ago that he wanted her and three other teachers "gone" from the school. The others left, but La Verne Thompson said she fought, even though she suffered a heart attack.
"The bottom line is that many administrators are intimidating and harassing their staffs," she said.

Lobbyists for administrators objected because Thompson included names of administrators who he alleged abused teachers in the binder given to the committee.

Massachusetts' recent decision to offer charterlike freedom to four of its lowest-performing schools has renewed debate about the role autonomy plays in school improvement: Should it be earned through good performance, or given as a vital tool for improvement? Is it risky to extend it to struggling schools?
Interest in the issue is keen. The New York City and Chicago school districts are engaged in high-profile experiments with giving schools autonomy. Both the governor of Nevada and a coalition of groups in Connecticut are proposing legislation to give principals more authority to decide the pathways to better student achievement.

You can read the complete article here.

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, February 23, 2007; Page A01

High school seniors are performing worse overall on some national tests than they did in the previous decade, even though they are receiving significantly higher grades and taking what seem to be more rigorous courses, according to government data released yesterday.
You can read the rest here.

How I joined Teach for America
— and got sued for $20 million

Well, when push came to shove, I didn’t want to devote my life to helping the rich get richer or crunching numbers to see what views were most popular for the vice president to adopt. This wasn’t what my 17 years of education were for.

My doctor parents had drummed into me that education was the key to every door, the one thing they couldn’t take away from my ancestors during pogroms and persecutions. They had also filled me with a strong sense of social justice. I couldn’t help feeling guilty dismay when I thought of the millions of kids who’d never even tasted the great teaching—not to mention the supportive family—I’d enjoyed for my entire life.

I told the Al Gore guy, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Weird as he might have thought it, I had decided to teach in an inner-city school.