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How Teacher Hiring Puts Black and Hispanic Kids at a Disadvantage

November 13, 2014

By Max Ehrenfreund
The Washington Post – Wonkblog
11/13/14

“A Los Angeles judge outraged educators around the country this summer when he threw out California’s law granting schoolteachers tenure, ruling that it kept incompetent teachers in classrooms with minority students. What teachers saw as a simple reward for difficult and important work had been declared, in essence, a law with disturbing racial impacts.

Now, a new working paper suggests that schools in Los Angeles often wind up putting children of color in classrooms with teachers who have less skill and experience than those who teach their white classmates.”

Read More

Filed Under: In the News

[BLOG] A Teacher Asks, How Do You Like Them Apples?

November 11, 2014

By Holly Kragthorpe
Education Post
November 11, 2014

“TIME’s recent cover story has elicited a lot of the usual rhetoric in national education debates. Like, a lot.

But has anyone noticed that there has been much more discussion about the cover—depicting teachers as “rotten apples”—than the actual story?

Sure, as a teacher, I was discouraged by the cover. But not because it personally offended me (it didn’t) but because I feared it might further polarize the national dialogue on much-needed education reforms (it did).”

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Filed Under: In the News

Tenure Approval Rate Ticks up in First Decisions Under de Blasio

November 7, 2014

By Philissa Cramer
Chalkbeat NY
11/7/14

“Sixty percent of New York City teachers eligible for tenure during the last school year received it, more than in any year since the city launched a crackdown to make the job protection harder to secure.

Two percent of the 4,660 teachers up for tenure were rejected, effectively barring them from working in city schools, according to data that the Department of Education released today. Another 38 percent of teachers had their tenure decisions deferred for another year.”

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Filed Under: In the News

A Lesson Plan for A+ Teachers

October 31, 2014

By Joel Klein
The Wall Street Journal
10/31/14

“Lots of research in the past decade underscores the importance of great teachers. Summarizing these studies, the distinguished Harvard economist Raj Chetty noted that good teachers aren’t only “effective at teaching to the test and raising students’ performance on tests”; they also have a long-term impact “on outcomes we ultimately care about from education,” such as encouraging students to avoid teen pregnancy and putting them on the path to college and middle-class earnings.

During my tenure as schools chancellor in New York City from 2002 to 2011, we found that, with proper recruitment, support and incentives, we could increase the numbers of teachers who were both temperamentally and intellectually equipped for the modern classroom. We accomplished this by making our schools exciting places to work, bringing in partners to aggressively recruit talented new teachers and significantly improving our compensation system.”

Full Article Here

Filed Under: In the News

California Race Brings Democrats’ Differences on Education Into Focus

October 31, 2014

By Motoko Rich
The New York Times
10/31/14

“In California, one of just 13 states where the schools chief is an elected post, this year’s race is unusual: It seems to have drawn more attention from outside the state than inside, because it is seen as a proxy for the national debate over teacher tenure rules, charter schools and other education issues that have divided Democrats.

The contest for California superintendent of public instruction has attracted more than $20 million in campaign contributions, largely because it is viewed as a referendum on the future direction of policy in public schools. And with two Democrats — Tom Torlakson, the incumbent, and Marshall Tuck, the challenger — vying for the office, the race also reflects a national schism within the party.”

Full Article Here

Filed Under: In the News

Executive Director Reshma Singh Responds to Chemerinsky’s Oct. 23rd NYDN Op-Ed

October 30, 2014

As a distinguished professor of law, Erwin Chemerinsky offered a thoughtful case of how to improve public education (“Teacher Tenure: Wrong target,” Oct. 23). Yet given that his column focused on the legal action by the parents whom our organization supports, and because his argument all flowed from a factually inaccurate description of our effort, a response to set the record right is in order.

The goal of the lawsuit by nine families against the State of New York is to ensure that all of our public school students have access to good teachers. The litigation targets three sets of laws that combine, in a quiet and devastating way, to undermine the state constitution’s promise of a sound, basic education.

The problem breaks down this way:

· Tenure laws that allow extensive job protections to be granted to teachers long before school leaders have a reasonable chance to determine the effectiveness of those teachers.

· Dismissal laws that make it nearly impossible for schools to fire grossly ineffective teachers.

· Seniority laws that solely consider how long teachers have been in class – without regard to quality, effectiveness or dedication – when educators are laid off during times of budget cuts.

The view of the parents, and our view at the Partnership for Educational Justice, is that New York deserves a system that supports, protects, trains, appreciates and properly pays good teachers. At the same time, teachers are not interchangeable parts; we must have a way to remove in a responsible and fair way those teachers judged to be incompetent. Otherwise, students will pay the price for years.

And this is where Chemerinsky’s column falls short.

He wrongly says that our lawsuit asserts that teachers’ rights are causing disadvantaged or minority students to have substandard educations. That is untrue. The suit never claims that tenure causes a bad education.

Rather, it says that tenure (which can assure a lifetime of employment) should not be granted until a teacher’s effectiveness can reasonably be determined. Even common sense supports that conclusion, to borrow a phrase from Chemerinsky’s column.

What’s more, he asserted that the lawsuit would eliminate due-process for teachers. That, too, is false. The lawsuit does not seek to, and would not, destroy basic due process for teachers. The problem in New York is that tenure and dismissal laws in our state provide such impenetrable protections that students come last – essentially, an “uber due process,” as a judge in the California Vergara case put it.

Yes, protections against arbitrary or political firings are vital. But our policies must protect our teachers and provide benefit to our students.

And it does not automatically stand to reason, as Chemerinsky says, that teacher effectiveness always improves with experience. Seniority is a factor in who keeps a teaching job, but as the only factor? When a California teacher of the year was fired based solely on inadequate seniority, did that help kids?

Finally, Chemerinsky cited other important problems that affect student performance and need to be addressed, including inferior salaries for teachers, community conditions and disadvantaged students. We agree. For example, teachers in hard-to-staff schools or high-demand fields should be paid more.

Our position is that all those challenges are not in competition with the ones of our lawsuit. We must work on all of them; they are all legitimate concerns and they all demand real action.

The families who are suing the State of New York have chosen to start with teacher quality because it is the single-most important school-based factor to student success. Research has supported this point. One exhaustive Harvard-led study found that replacing a low-performing teacher with even an average one increased the lifetime earnings of a single student by $50,000—or that of a classroom by $1.4 million.

We believe the parents of the case deserve to have a day in court, just as all students deserve to know that getting a quality teacher should not be a matter of which school or class they attend. The constitution promises a sound education for all. And that is why, in fact, we have chosen the right target.

—

Reshma Singh is the Executive Director of Partnership for Educational Justice. Follow her on Twitter: @reshma_a_singh.

Filed Under: Blog

[VIDEO] TIME Magazine’s Nancy Gibbs Defends “Rotten Apples” Cover

October 30, 2014

TIME Magazine’s Managing Editor, Nancy Gibbs, joins MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to defend TIME’s recent “Rotten Apples” cover.

Filed Under: In the News

MSNBC: Teachers’ Unions Undermine Good Teachers Who Want To Improve Educational System

October 30, 2014

By Washington Free Beacon Staff
10/30/14

“Time Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs defended an article critiquing teachers’ unions, saying that “the people who are most upset by bad teachers are good teachers.”

The article, which bears the cover title “Rotten Apples: It’s Nearly Impossible to Fire a Bad Teacher,” prompted outrage from teachers unions and protesters who said it insults all teachers.

“If you’re a great third grade teacher and you’ve brought your class along and lit them on fire with the love of learning, and then you turn them over to an ineffective teacher and you watch that be lost,” Gibbs said on Thursday’s Morning Joe. “That is heartbreaking.”

Full Article Here

Filed Under: In the News

Keoni Wright’s Statement Regarding NY School Administrators Association’s Motion to Dismiss

October 28, 2014

The New York School Administrators Association filed its Motion to Dismiss papers yesterday in response to our New York parent lawsuit.

Plaintiff Keoni Wright responds:

“Concerns we have about the quality of our children’s education have been ignored or denied at every level. So it comes as no surprise that administrators and bureaucrats claim that parents — those with the largest interest in the well-being of their children — don’t have standing. This is exactly why we have turned to the courts. We won’t be dismissed any longer.”

-Keoni Wright, Plaintiff and Father of 5 from East NY, Brooklyn

Filed Under: Press Releases

Taking in Full Tenure Conversation in TIME

October 28, 2014

By Michael Vaughn
Education Post
10/28/14

“The teacher-tenure conversation was already pretty loud and heated. And then TIME magazine dropped the hammer. Well, the gavel, actually. But it landed with the force of a sledgehammer.

Much of the response has focused on the “Rotten Apples” cover…and understandably so. As Tim Daly at TNTP pointed out recently, the post-Vergara conversations about tenure have been too focused on the extremes—either get rid of tenure altogether or leave it as is—when it should be a more nuanced discussion, focused on fixing tenure and making it more meaningful.”

Read More

Filed Under: In the News

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  • About Us
    • Our Mission
    • Our History
    • FAQ
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  • Teacher Quality Lawsuits
    • New York Lawsuit (Wright v. New York)
    • Minnesota Lawsuit (Forslund v. Minnesota)
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    • Permanent Employment
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