Keseruan Bermain Slot di Agen Terpercaya: Pengalaman Pemain yang Memukau

 Keseruan Bermain Slot di Agen Terpercaya: Pengalaman Pemain yang Memukau

Siapa yang tidak suka bermain slot? Permainan yang menarik ini telah menjadi favorit banyak orang di seluruh dunia. Dengan bermain slot, Anda dapat merasakan sensasi dan keseruan yang tak tertandingi. Apalagi jika Anda bermain di agen terpercaya seperti  INDO6D, BET6D, INDOWLATOTO, SHOPTOTO, FAMILYTOTO, PERAKTOTO, dan VEGASTOGEL. Dalam artikel ini, kami akan membahas pengalaman pemain yang memukau ketika bermain slot di agen-agen ini.

INDO6D adalah salah satu agen terpercaya yang menawarkan berbagai jenis permainan slot. Dengan tampilan yang menarik dan fitur-fitur canggih, INDO6D memberikan pengalaman bermain yang tak terlupakan. Salah satu pemain, Budi, mengatakan bahwa dia sangat terkesan dengan keberagaman permainan slot yang ditawarkan oleh INDO6D. Mulai dari tema-tema klasik hingga tema-tema modern, ada sesuatu untuk semua orang di sini. Budi juga menyukai bonus dan promosi yang sering ditawarkan oleh INDO6D, karena ini memberinya peluang lebih besar untuk menang.

BET6D juga merupakan agen terpercaya yang menawarkan pengalaman bermain slot yang luar biasa. Dengan grafis yang menakjubkan dan efek suara yang memukau, BET6D memberikan sensasi bermain slot yang seolah-olah Anda berada di kasino sungguhan. Rani, seorang pemain yang sering bermain di BET6D, mengatakan bahwa dia sangat terkesan dengan kualitas permainan yang ditawarkan oleh agen ini. Dia juga menyukai fitur-fitur tambahan seperti putaran gratis dan fitur bonus yang membuat permainan semakin menarik.

INDOWLATOTO juga tidak kalah menariknya. Dengan permainan slot yang inovatif dan menarik, INDO6D memberikan pengalaman bermain yang tak terlupakan. Dina, seorang pemain yang sering bermain di INDO6D, mengatakan bahwa dia sangat terkesan dengan keberagaman tema dan fitur-fitur yang ditawarkan oleh agen ini. Dia juga menyukai tampilan yang modern dan mudah digunakan, sehingga dia dapat dengan mudah menavigasi antara permainan yang berbeda.

SHOPTOTO juga merupakan agen terpercaya yang menawarkan pengalaman bermain slot yang menarik. Dengan pilihan permainan yang luas dan fitur-fitur canggih, SHOPTOTO memberikan sensasi bermain yang tak tertandingi. Andi, seorang pemain yang sering bermain di SHOPTOTO, mengatakan bahwa dia sangat terkesan dengan kualitas grafis dan efek suara yang ditawarkan oleh agen ini. Dia juga menyukai bonus dan promosi yang sering ditawarkan, karena ini memberinya peluang lebih besar untuk menang.

FAMILYTOTO juga tidak boleh dilewatkan. Dengan permainan slot yang menarik dan menghibur, FAMILYTOTO memberikan pengalaman bermain yang tak terlupakan. Dian, seorang pemain yang sering bermain di FAMILYTOTO, mengatakan bahwa dia sangat terkesan dengan keberagaman tema dan fitur-fitur yang ditawarkan oleh agen ini. Dia juga menyukai tampilan yang menarik dan mudah digunakan, sehingga dia dapat dengan mudah menikmati permainan.

PERAKTOTO juga merupakan agen terpercaya yang menawarkan pengalaman bermain slot yang menarik. Dengan fitur-fitur canggih dan permainan yang seru, PERAKTOTO memberikan sensasi bermain yang tak terlupakan. Rina, seorang pemain yang sering bermain di PERAKTOTO, mengatakan bahwa dia sangat terkesan dengan keberagaman permainan dan bonus yang ditawarkan oleh agen ini. Dia juga menyukai tampilan yang menarik dan mudah digunakan, sehingga dia dapat dengan mudah menemukan permainan yang dia inginkan.

Terakhir, VEGASTOGEL juga tidak boleh dilewatkan. Dengan permainan slot yang menarik dan menghibur, VEGASTOGEL memberikan pengalaman bermain yang tak terlupakan. Siti, seorang pemain yang sering bermain di VEGASTOGEL, mengatakan bahwa dia sangat terkesan dengan kualitas permainan dan tampilan yang ditawarkan oleh agen ini. Dia juga menyukai bonus dan promosi yang sering ditawarkan, karena ini memberinya peluang lebih besar untuk menang.

Dalam kesimpulan, bermain slot di agen terpercaya seperti  INDO6D, BET6D, INDOWLATOTO, SHOPTOTO, FAMILYTOTO, PERAKTOTO, dan VEGASTOGEL adalah pengalaman yang tak terlupakan. Dengan berbagai macam permainan slot yang menarik dan fitur-fitur canggih, Anda akan merasa seperti berada di kasino sungguhan. Jadi, tunggu apa lagi? Segera bergabunglah dengan agen-agen ini dan rasakan keseruan bermain slot yang memukau!

Membongkar Mitos tentang Live Draw HK Terpercaya: Fakta Sebenarnya

 Membongkar Mitos tentang Live Draw HK Terpercaya: Fakta Sebenarnya

Ketika datang ke perjudian dan taruhan, banyak mitos dan cerita yang beredar di masyarakat. Salah satu mitos yang populer adalah tentang Live Draw HK. Banyak orang berpikir bahwa Live Draw HK adalah cara yang tidak terpercaya untuk memenangkan uang. Namun, apakah ini benar? Dalam artikel ini, kami akan membongkar mitos tentang Live Draw HK dan memberikan fakta sebenarnya.

Live Draw HK adalah sebuah acara yang diselenggarakan secara langsung di Hong Kong, di mana nomor-nomor yang akan keluar dalam undian diumumkan. Banyak orang percaya bahwa Live Draw HK adalah sebuah bentuk penipuan dan bahwa hasil undian tidak adil. Namun, ini tidak benar. Live Draw HK adalah acara yang diatur dan diawasi oleh otoritas perjudian Hong Kong yang terpercaya. Setiap nomor yang diumumkan dalam Live Draw HK adalah hasil dari undian yang adil dan jujur.

Salah satu mitos yang sering terdengar adalah bahwa ada cara untuk memprediksi nomor yang akan keluar dalam Live Draw HK. Banyak orang percaya bahwa ada pola atau rumus rahasia yang dapat digunakan untuk memenangkan undian. Namun, ini tidak benar. Live Draw HK adalah acak dan tidak dapat diprediksi. Setiap nomor memiliki peluang yang sama untuk keluar, dan tidak ada cara untuk memanipulasi hasil undian.

Selain itu, ada juga mitos bahwa Live Draw HK hanya menguntungkan bandar dan tidak ada yang bisa menang. Ini juga tidak benar. Meskipun bandar memang menghasilkan keuntungan dari taruhan, banyak orang juga telah memenangkan hadiah besar melalui Live Draw HK. Jutaan orang berpartisipasi dalam Live Draw HK setiap hari, dan beberapa dari mereka berhasil memenangkan hadiah besar. Tentu saja, peluang untuk memenangkan hadiah besar tidaklah tinggi, tetapi bukan berarti tidak mungkin.

Ada juga mitos bahwa Live Draw HK adalah bentuk perjudian yang tidak sah dan ilegal. Ini juga tidak benar. Live Draw HK adalah bentuk perjudian yang legal di Hong Kong. Otoritas perjudian Hong Kong mengatur dan mengawasi Live Draw HK untuk memastikan bahwa semua aturan dan peraturan diikuti dengan benar. Jadi, jika Anda berpartisipasi dalam Live Draw HK, Anda tidak perlu khawatir tentang masalah hukum.

Selain itu, ada juga mitos bahwa Live Draw HK hanya untuk orang-orang yang kaya dan memiliki banyak uang. Ini juga tidak benar. Live Draw HK terbuka untuk semua orang, tanpa memandang latar belakang atau status sosial. Anda tidak perlu menjadi orang kaya untuk berpartisipasi dalam Live Draw HK. Yang Anda butuhkan hanyalah sedikit keberuntungan dan kemauan untuk mencoba.

Dalam kesimpulan, banyak mitos yang beredar tentang Live Draw HK. Namun, fakta sebenarnya adalah bahwa Live Draw HK adalah bentuk perjudian yang sah dan diawasi dengan ketat oleh otoritas perjudian Hong Kong. Hasil undian adalah adil dan tidak dapat diprediksi. Meskipun peluang untuk memenangkan hadiah besar tidaklah tinggi, bukan berarti tidak mungkin. Jadi, jika Anda tertarik untuk mencoba keberuntungan Anda dalam Live Draw HK, jangan biarkan mitos menghentikan Anda. Siapa tahu, Anda mungkin menjadi salah satu dari sedikit orang yang beruntung dan memenangkan hadiah besar.

Efforts to Produce Rational Education Reform

Senator Ben Nevers, a long time supporter of public schools and teacher rights attempted last week to restore sanity to one component of education reform in Louisiana. Unfortunately his efforts were overwhelmed by the big business lobby. Senate Bill 650 by Nevers was supported by the Louisiana Association of Educators and would have substituted multiple measures of student achievement (instead of the scores on one standardized test) for the quantitative portion of the teacher evaluation system. Surprisingly, the State Department of Education put in a green card of support for the legislation, but the effort was not sincere as evidenced by the fact that no one from the Department testified for the bill.



This legislation would have significantly improved the foundation of the Act 54 evaluation. Many educators believe that the Nevers legislation would have produced a more effective and rational evaluation system, but the big business lobbies represented by the The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) and the Council for a Better Louisiana (CABL) successfully put pressure on the Senate Education Committee to block the legislation. The Senate Education Committee has demonstrated this year that it is basically owned by big business and Governor Jindal and is not interested in professional educators' opinion.



LAE Executive Director, Michael Walker Jones was quoted as follows: “I don’t see anyone with LABI or CABL with the experience to accurately gauge the work teachers do in the classroom,” Walker-Jones said. “I would never put myself up as someone who understands the complexities of business. Number one, schools are not a business, number two, classrooms are not a business and number three, we are trained professionals in what we do. They can sit down with us anytime they are interested in learning how a classroom works. I will debate anyone from LABI or CABL anytime, anyplace, anywhere in Louisiana.”

Another LAE sponsored bill (HB 879 by Rep. Sam Jones) would have reinstated legitimate due process for dismissal or discipline of permanent teachers. This bill was killed in the House Education Committee by a close vote on May 9. The legislation would have allowed for local school board review of dismissal or discipline of permanent teachers and would have allowed the teacher to request binding arbitration as a final step of any such action. The following Education Committee members voted to defer (kill) the bill: Landry, Carter, Broadwater, Burns, Carmody, Champagne, Hollis, Nancy Landry, Shadoin, and Thompson. Voting against the motion to defer the bill were: Bishop, Edwards, Jefferson, Price, Richard, Patricia Smith, and Alfred Williams.



The major problem with Governor Jindal's revision of the tenure law is that it basically destroys legitimate due process rights of all teachers. The new law provides that the tenure hearing committee be comprised of 3 members with one selected by the superintendent, one by the principal and one selected by the teacher.  It automatically stacks the deck against the teacher. Also, even though the removal of a teacher for alleged ineffectiveness is supposed to take two years, the moment a teacher gets an unsatisfactory evaluation, he/she loses new step increases and is put first in line for layoff. With inadequate state funding and huge unfunded mandates hitting most local school systems, we can fully expect significant layoffs of many teachers both this year and next. I believe that the obvious glitches in the new evaluation system could cause 20+ year experienced teachers who may have had excellent evaluation records for many years to be unfairly listed as first to be laid off in the coming RIFs.



That's why teachers need to be organized as never before. For at least the past ten years many teachers had assumed that their rights would continue to be protected regardless of the various waves of reform. That is no longer true. Most teachers thought that the Governor and most legislators respected them as professionals. That is no longer true. Most teachers really believed that education reform would be rational and based on sound education principles and on education research findings. That is no longer true.



In reality, most of the recent irrational reforms are already beginning to produce negative unintended consequences. For example, the push for parental choice is now being used by parents in affluent neighborhoods as a rationale to split away their neighborhood from traditional parish systems. This could leave the poorer neighborhoods with an inadequate tax base and under-funding. All of this is leading to more segregation of student populations both racially and into the haves and the have-nots. Exactly the opposite of what the Jindal "reforms" were supposed to produce.



I believe the attack on the teaching profession in this legislature, instead of improving and strengthening the teaching force will discourage many promising young teachers from remaining in education. Also, some experienced teachers may decide to retire earlier than they had planned instead of putting up with the worsening student testing craze and the insults of the value-added evaluation system.

I want to point out a few positives however:  Opinion surveys repeadedly show that most parents of public school children still believe in and support their child's teacher. The terrible attacks on the teaching profession this year have not come from the general public but from a well financed and determined elite minority of big business executives and newspaper editors who believe they have all the answers to reforming education. The fact that all recent public school tax renewals in Louisiana passed so overwhelmingly, shows that the average taxpayer does not blame teachers for the problems in our schools today. When newspaper stories critical of public education are written, reader comments supporting teachers outnumber negative comments 10 to 1. Educators need to mobilize their supporters to save our public schools and restore respect for the profession.



Real reform based on what educators know is effective is sorely needed.  But that won't happen until teachers and school administrators become much more involved in the election of their legislators and the Governor. I will keep repeating this! Educators live in large numbers in most legislative districts. If we unify now to counteract these misguided and harmful attacks on public education we can be extremely effective. Please stay tuned to this blog and to your professional/union organizations and participate in the plans to involve educators in political action that can truly improve education and restore the status of professional educators!

Public to Public Vouchers Only First of Many Failures

Part of the Jindal reform legislation is supposed to allow students in so called D and F schools to have an opportunity to transfer to other public schools in a different public system that has achieved a rating of B or better. The problem is that the receiving school system must first agree to offer seats to such students. The Zachary school system had initially offered to accept 30 such voucher students for the 2012-13 school year, but protests by parents to their locally elected school board members nixed the deal. The superintendent of the Ouachita parish school system has also announced that his school system would opt out of the public to public voucher program.



I believe these announcements are just the tip of the iceberg of failure of much of the governor's education “deform” package as education officials attempt to implement the poorly thought out programs. (See also Diane Ravitch's latest blog on Louisiana ed reform)The entire reform package was rammed through the legislature early in the session with orders from the governor to the majority Republican legislature that amendments would not be allowed. As a result, much of the legislation which was based on ALEC templates drawn up by big business lobbyists and TFA corps members (you've got to read this story!) who have no clue what really works in education, is not only harmful but also very impractical. So much of what is being proposed by Jindal and his Superintendent John White is so totally impractical that it will never get off the ground.



For example, White has proposed that all students in all Louisiana public schools will achieve proficiency in ELA and math by the 2014 school year, yet there is nothing in the data collected by the Department of Education to show that anything close to this goal is possible. It looks like most of Louisiana's education reform goals are based on wishful thinking rather than on solid programs. Such “bold initiatives” set up our public schools for unnecessary failure in the eyes of the public.



Superintendent White still touts school takeovers by the Recovery District as Louisiana's primary strategy for turning around failing schools, yet all direct takeovers have been absolute failures to the point that parents have been pulling students out and re-enrolling them in the regular public schools. In East Baton Rouge the Department made the dramatic announcement recently that it is now taking over failing schools and creating an “achievement zone” run by the RSD. What was not reported about this initiative is that all but one of the schools taken over had already been under the direction of the Recovery District for several years and all had failed! Shame on the news media for regurgitating the propaganda generated by the Education Dept. instead of reporting the facts.



Preliminary figures indicate that very few students will have any opportunity to utilize the new vouchers. This fact makes a mockery out of the so called choice legislation. The only individuals who will exercise choice are the private and parochial administrators who see a way to improve their bottom line.



Virtual charters are being extensively expanded without a shred of evidence that virtual charter students are performing satisfactorily. One thing is known however. Virtual charters are extremely profitable in Louisiana for the wall street tycoons who have basically written the legislation and BESE guidelines that allow such schools to get twice the true per pupil cost of educating a child in a virtual charter.

The new requirement that all students be prepared for and required to take the ACT is another example of wishful thinking dictating bad education policy. One of the principals I talked to last week said he has no confidence that we can expect many of his low performing students to travel to the ACT testing centers even though their testing fees are fully paid by the state! Does anyone expect our governor to provide one penny of funding for students scoring 16 and lower on the ACT to attend college? Has the new Superintendent bothered to look at the college dropout statistics? What about the student loan debt burden most students who drop out of college are now being saddled with? Do we really want to foist another empty promise on our non-college prep students? As we have pointed out in this blog, even in Finland which is considered to have the most successful educational system in the western world, only 40% of the student population is prepared for college. Louisiana has a 60% poverty student population while Finland has only 5% of its students living in poverty. Those who believe that poverty has no effect on school performance and readiness for college are solid adherents to the wishful thinking school of education reform.

The new charter schools that would be created by the new charter authorizers in the reform package, are supposed to prepare students for good jobs that are in demand in each geographical region of the state. Such schools according to the legislation must achieve a rating of B or better to retain good standing. Someone has apparently alerted the governor to the fact that the Louisiana educational system is currently not providing enough skilled workers in non degree fields. So in addition to preparing kids for college, these new charter schools are supposed to train their students in technical and vocational areas. I've got news for the Governor. Louisiana cannot mandate a modern vocational-technical training program out of thin air. There has to be real planning and funding. And to insist on a combined college prep and vocational curriculum for all is just plain ignorant!

Finally the Governor and White are betting everything on a plan that will wipe out all due process rights for the teaching profession and base all employment decisions on student performance. The flaw in this proposal is that it assumes that most of student under-performance is caused by lazy and/or incompetent teachers. The theory is that the firing and replacement of a certain percentage of teachers based on student test scores will dramatically raise student scores in public schools. There is not a shred of evidence for this assumption. What we can expect is that as impossible performance goals are mandated, cheating scandals will hit Louisiana just as has happened in Georgia and the District of Columbia. Four years from now, Jindal and White will move on to other things, and the citizens of Louisiana and the professional educators who survive will have to pick up the pieces and restructure our educational system, hopefully this time using sound educational principles.



Better yet, should not the professional educators who live in large numbers in every representative district in the state begin immediately to demand accountability of our legislators and our Governor! As has been pointed out, the children can't afford to wait any longer for real reform.

More on the 10% factor

Many of my readers are still struggling to understand exactly which teachers are expected to be rated ineffective by the Act 54 teacher evaluation plan. So I submitted the following questions to Superintendent White in an email recently:



Mr White:

The readers of my blog at louisianaeducator.blogspot.com have asked several questions that I have not been able to answer. I would appreciate very much if you could answer the following questions.

• Will the 10% of teachers deemed to be ineffective by the Act 54 evaluation be determined on a school by school basis with 10% of each faculty deemed ineffective, or will the bottom rated 10 percentile of all teachers in the state be rated as ineffective?   



• Since approximately two thirds of the teachers are not included in the LEAP categories of testing, will there be a separate 10% factor of ineffective teachers in these other (NTGS) areas or will the 10% ineffective apply to all teachers as a single group? (I understand that the guidelines will exclude certain positions that do not actually work with a measurable group of students such as librarians)


• How many years do you expect the 10% ineffective factor to be applied? Is it intended to be perpetual?
  
  

Superintendent White was very prompt in responding by email with the following answers:



"It is 10 percent of teachers who receive value-added data. And it is across the state, not within the specific school.



The 10 percent is based on an assessment of student learning in classes where the bottom 10 percent teach. So, were BESE convinced that the bottom 10 percent no longer represented a serious drop in student learning, they may consider a revision as with any other policy.”



You will note that while questions 1 and 3 were answered, there is no specific response to question #2. Based on his answer to Question 1, I am assuming that the 10% factor will not apply to non-tested grades and subjects until the Dept. feels that they have developed an assessment instrument that allows for acceptable value-added data to be used with these teachers. The plan submitted to the US DOE states that efforts will be made to create the value-added component for other grades and subjects. This means that for the 2012-13 school year, only about one third of the state's public school teachers will be affected by the mandatory 10% ineffective factor.



 I assume this will be done by the state first gathering the results of the evaluations of all teachers that are subject to the value-added criteria, listing all evaluation scores in increasing score order, then designating the bottom 10 percentile as "ineffective" and the top 10 percentile as "highly effective". Everyone in between would be rated "effective".



In the case of all other evaluations, (NTGS teachers) the rating of ineffective, effective, and highly effective will be determined separately. The State Dept. plans to use Student Learning Targets (SLT) in the place of the value-added data for the quantitative portion of the evaluation.  See the explaination of this at the LDOE web site. I am assuming that the State Dept. will set the scores needed for each category. For example, in the original plan they used a 5 point scale with a score of 1-2 designated as ineffective and 4-5 as highly effective and with all scores in between as effective.



On the testing issue, principals and teachers are beginning to express serious concerns that the amount of student testing has become extreme, to the point that there is less and less time available for teaching. See the Times Picayune article here about the town hall meeting in St Charles Parish. The concern about testing all high school students with the ACT and the ACT prep tests was also expressed at the Lafayette forum. My readers already know how I feel about trying to make all students college prep. (See also Diane Ravitch's latest blog)

A Day In the Field

I spent a whole day yesterday visiting schools and talking to principals and teachers. I was able to visit the high poverty school featured recently in the national blog Teacher in a Strange Land. What a treat!

Last year this school was considered a failing school and was close to being taken over by the state. Most children were performing as very low levels and some suffered from neglect, abuse and handicaps. All the students are high poverty.

Instead of being taken over, the school was allowed to reorganize this school year. A new principal who is a National Board Certified Teacher was able to hand pick her staff which is now made up of seasoned Board Certified Teachers, some teachers from the previous year, and new teachers including a few TFA teachers. Here are my impressions based on my short visit.

There is a tremendous team spirit at the school with the principal as the undisputed leader. Everywhere you go on the campus, there is order. Everyone is on task. Teachers are confident, students attentive and cheerfully working on projects, reading, listening, and anxious to demonstrate their learning. If we step into a classroom most students look up for a moment but then quickly go back to work. When we walk by the cafeteria or to the playground, the students crowd around the principal like chicks around a mother hen. She hugs them and they hug back. The children have been taught to make eye contact and respond courteously.

I got to meet the Dean of students and found out she makes home visits to ensure discipline and parental involvement. This a neighborhood school. All of the children live within a few blocks of the school. The school was being visited by a big blue bus left over from the federal Katrina assistance programs that provides services from a school psychologist and other specialists.

It's late in the school year and the new teachers have developed confidence in their skills. They all want to come back next year. The results from LEAP have not come in yet but almost all students are showing very good progress on all their diagnostic tests.

This is not a charter school. It is a traditional school run by highly trained and experienced professionals and a good mix of enthusiastic young teachers. I am proud to say that the principal was once one of my students many years ago. There is no merit pay based on student performance. Teachers are paid based on years of experience, degrees and even the National Board Certified supplement which comes from the local school system (since the state has stopped funding it). This school is thriving compared to the takeover charter schools in the area that have continued to decline. Unfortunately our Governor and State Superintendent want to take our schools in a different direction.

I ended my day by attending the town hall meeting with Superintendent White in Lafayette. (See the Lafayette Advertizer Article) White complimented teachers for the increases in LEAP results of the last 10 years. He also said: “We cannot fire our way to success in education.” But most of the questions of teachers centered around the part of the Act 54 evaluation that requires that 10% of teachers be rated as ineffective and put on a path to dismissal. Many teachers are not confident that the mysterious value-added formulas will be fair.

White has stated in the No Child Left Behind waiver proposal to the US DOE that all children in Louisiana will achieve proficiency by the year 2014. The feds had stipulated that state achievement goals must be ambitious but achievable. I just don't know how the recent reforms and adopting the slogan “Louisiana Believes” can make this happen.

Takeover Schools Fail

Click here to read the Baton Rouge Advocate article on yet another school takeover in Baton Rouge. My question is how in the world can this action be justified considering the following recent revelations?

It is now official. The State Department of Education has finally admitted that all of the state takeover schools in the Baton Rouge area are dismal failures. (The same can be said of all takeover schools in Pointe Coupee, St Helena, and Caddo) Patrick Dobard, RSD Superintendent admitted that the schools in the Baton Rouge area after almost 4 years in the RSD have failed to make any progress. In fact the LEAP and ILEAP results show a decline in student performance in almost all testing areas. (see our earlier post on this)  In addition, most of the schools have suffered major losses in student enrollment. It looks like parents have been utilizing “choice” even before the major choice legislation was passed by the legislature this year. Dobard wants to form an "Achievement Zone" for 20 Baton Rouge schools patterned after the Harlem Children's Zone. (I guess they are giving up on modeling after the New Orleans RSD)

Many of the takeover schools in Baton Rouge have been run as charter schools by Advance Baton Rouge, a community organization comprised mostly of “do gooder” junior league types and heavily supported by the business community in Baton Rouge including major blow hards like Rolfe McCollister, editor of the Baton Rouge Business Report. (Rolf's daughter who had no education credentials was hired at one time to help administer some of the ABR schools). Another charter management organization that failed and turned their schools back to the state was the 100 Black Men group which had contracted out two schools to the for-profit Edison Group.

Don't believe it when the reformers tell you that all charter operators are non-profits. An increasing number of charter managers are hiring “for-profit” groups to actually run the schools. The same is happening with the groups approved by BESE to run the two new virtual charters schools. One Virtual Charter is run by the Connections Academy group and another by the K-12 Education group. These for-profits are major funders of the ALEC group (The American Legislative Exchange Council). They have taken lead roles in the drafting of much of the “reform” legislation Governor Jindal rammed through the legislature this session. Does this look like a conflict of interest? How much of our school tax dollars are going into the pockets of wealthy Jindal supporters? (ALEC gave Jindal its top “leadership” award last year)

Advance Baton Rouge which has now demonstrated total failure in its efforts to run schools, was highly favored by groups such as the Gates Foundation and the Milken Foundation which now has a partnership with the US DOE to administer TAP grants to local school systems and charters. ABR had received a six million dollar grant to run the TAP program in its charter schools. ABR also billed itself as a trainer of principals in a program related to 21^st Century Skills. Throughout their efforts with charter schools ABR has brought in highly paid principals from as far away as New York, only to have every one of them fail in turning around a single school.

Another charter group that is still struggling to keep control of its Baton Rouge school is The Pelican Educational Foundation affiliated with the Turkish Gulen Movement. This charter group had its charter school in New Orleans taken over by BESE because of several major infractions of state and federal regulations. Its school in Baton Rouge is supposedly under investigation by the State Dept. for possible violations. The former school secretary is suing the Pelican Foundation based on a claim that she was fired because she blew the whistle on efforts by administrators to implement selective enrollment in violation of state law. Charters in Louisiana are notorious for firing teachers who blow the whistle on their illegal activities. None of these teachers had union membership.

Also yesterday, the teachers at Crestworth Learning Academy in Baton Rouge are said to have staged a walkout because of a 20% cut in their salaries and benefits. My understanding is that these teachers have no union protection and could be fired without any form of due process. Did you notice that the Jindal administration is also pushing through legislation (HB 1023) that would ban teachers from having payroll deduction privileges for joining teacher organizations that are involved in political activities.

Teachers wake up! Jindal is not only taking away all of your due process rights, and making your employment totally dependent on student test scores, but he wants to make it much harder for you to join organizations that work to protect your rights and benefits! It is ironic that the teaching profession in Louisiana seems to be a tartget of attacks on consitutional protections.

Are All Schools Mandated to Find 10% of Teachers Ineffective?

Is Superintendent White
really serious about requiring that 10% of public school teachers be
rated as “ineffective”? If so, will this be mandated on a
school-by-school basis or on a school system basis or on a statewide
basis? Comments from some of my readers this week prompted me to
research this issue further. The following is an exact reprint of a
statement in the Act 54 evaluation plan recently submitted by White
to the US Dept. of Education as part of the ESEA Flexibility Request.
Judge for yourself what it means.

“4.
Establishing Measures of Effectiveness: For teachers where value
added data is available, the composite percentile is converted to a
1.0-5.0 scale to use in the teacher’s final evaluation. Teachers
and leaders (school-wide) whose value added, composite percentile
fall within the bottom 10% will receive an ineffective rating.
Teachers in the middle 20-80% range will receive a rating of
effective. The top 10% of teachers will receive a rating of highly
effective.”

Since that plan was submitted, White
has announced that the rating scale will be changed from a 5 level
scale to a 4 level scale. Will that change the 10% factor? This
brings up the following questions that may need to be asked of Supt.
White at the teacher town hall meetings:

1. Would it make sense to apply the
   10% ineffective factor on a school-by-school basis since some
   schools are rated A and some are rated D and F?


2. 
   Since the teachers of non-tested
   subjects and grades will be evaluated using a somewhat different
   system, will the 10% “ineffective” group include only teachers
   of state tested subjects? Or will there be two categories of 10%
   ineffective rankings (one for state tested subjects and grades and
   another for non tested)?
   
   


3. 
   Will the teachers of non tested
   subjects and grades have an advantage since they and their
   principals will set their performance goals for the value added
   portion of their evaluation?
   
   
   


4. 
   Is it true that a formerly tenured
   teacher can now be terminated without a tenure hearing as soon as
   he/she receives an “ineffective” rating using the Act 54
   evaluation? The new law states that a teacher loses tenure as soon
   as he/she gets an “ineffective” evaluation. Once you are
   non-tenured you become an “at will” employee, subject to
   dismissal with only a notice of such by your Superintendent.
   
   


5. 
   Isn't the new tenure hearing
   process really just a mockery of due process since the
   Superintendent and the Principal get to pick 2 out of 3 of the
   hearing officers?
   
   

Since this is a blog and I get to give
my opinion, I want to make the following point:

I think the letter grading system adopted by BESE for
public schools is very misleading and can lead to real dilemmas when it
comes to classifying teachers as “ineffective”, “effective”,
and “highly effective”.



 In the document referred to above, White points out that one-third of Louisiana's public school students are performing below grade level. He then asserts that in the past too many teachers in Louisiana have received satisfactory ratings. In doing so he implies that teachers are primarily responsible for the sub par performance of the students in some schools.



 The Act 54 evaluation system is supposed to determine the
effectiveness of teachers in all types of schools. Consider a comparison of teachers teaching in high poverty schools with teachers
teaching in academically selective magnet schools. Throughout the
state, most high poverty schools and particularly alternative schools
that work with difficult to teach students are rated "D" and "F". At the
same time most selective magnet schools are rated "A". Does it make
sense to expect that a large number of teachers working in alternative or
extremely high poverty schools will get an "ineffective" rating and
that many teachers in  magnet schools will get a "highly effective
rating"? Or is it fairer to decide ahead of time that 10% of the
teachers in all schools should be rated ineffective? No matter what
course our education Czar chooses the end result is highly arbitrary
and potentially unfair. This whole teacher evaluation and school letter grading system stinks!



I urge all teachers who care about their profession to attend the town hall meetings in their areas. I do not believe it is appropriate to limit each school to only 3 teachers allowed to attend. These issues are of great concern to all teachers!

White town hall meetings

Superintendent White announced yesterday that he will host a series of town meetings . (click on the link above to see the schedule.) with teachers and superintendents across the state to discuss the new reform laws and the No Child Left Behind waiver request. The new initiative announced by the Superintendent is titled Louisiana Believes! Apparently the superintendent, fresh from major legislative victories that destroy teacher tenure rights, ban the use of seniority in personnel decisions, order local school systems to revise teacher salary schedules that may freeze many teacher salaries for years and diminish the importance of experience and degrees in calculating salaries, rip students and much MFP funding from local school systems causing increases in class sizes and decreased funding for education supplies, and impose a punitive new teacher evaluation system, believes that he will be able to enlist enthusiastic teacher and administrator support for this damaging program!

The gall of this guy is truly amazing!



I hope many teachers attend these town hall meetings in their areas and ask a few critical questions of our new czar of education. Here are some I would suggest:

• What makes you (Superintendent White) think that teachers are going to embrace a reform program that blames teachers for all deficiencies in student's performance and makes teachers responsible for correcting some of the ills of society over which they never will have control?


• Why does the new superintendent assume that teachers are not already trying their best to help students succeed? Does he really believe that he who has minimal qualifications for his job and zero experience dealing with Louisiana public education can motivate teachers to do the job that they have always tried their best to do?


• Since the legislative reforms have not given teachers one additional tool for improving instruction, apparently White believes that all that has to be done is for teachers to teach harder or stop being so lazy and incompetent and students will automatically succeed. Don't the reforms just assume that teachers have not being doing their job and that threats and incentives will make them more effective?


• Suppose the theory that teachers have to be whipped into shape to improve education is not correct. Suppose that classifying 10% of all teachers as ineffective each year does not improve student achievement on the state tests or on the NAEP tests. What will White do then?


• Since White believes in firing ineffective teachers and administrators, will he resign if his reforms fail to make any significant improvement in student achievement? What if the schools taken over by the state continue to rank second to last in the state? Will he resign then?

These are just a few of the questions that popped into my head when White announced that he would hold these town hall meetings with teachers. I'm sure my readers have good questions of their own and that many will attend these meetings.


If you would like to read something positive about the work teachers in Louisiana do for a change, please click on this link to Teacher in a Strange Land. Its good to read about real education reform in Louisiana.

Ed Reform May Increase Segregation

Options galore! That's how the Baton Rouge Advocate describes school options within the next few years for Baton Rouge public school parents. Now in addition to expanded charters and vouchers, a new breakaway district is in the process of being approved by the legislature for another mostly white section of the East Baton Rouge Parish school system. One would assume that expanded school choice, should increase the racial mixing of all students by allowing students to transfer to successful schools and by forcing the closing of unsuccessful mostly segregated schools. It is quite likely instead that racial segregation will intensify as a result of the radical reforms approved this year by the legislature. Governor Jindal's contention that vouchers and charters will allow many low income parents to exercise better educational opportunities for their children will turn out to be mostly an empty promise. Other large school systems such as Caddo may soon follow the example of EBR in allowing the breakaway of mostly white or affluent sections of the school system also resulting in poor, mostly black inner city districts with decreased financial resources compared to the suburbs! I believe that much of the reform effort will eventually result in a reduction in opportunities for poor and black students!



Re-segregation has happened before following the federal courts' push to end racial segregation in many Louisiana public school systems. Part of the rationale for desegregation was to equalize opportunities for black and other minority students. Take the East Baton Rouge Public school system for example: Prior to 1976, as the courts fully implemented busing of students to achieve desegregation, the school system had reached a peak enrollment of 68,000 students of which 42,000 or 62% were white. Now after 30 years of desegregation efforts, there are only 5,000 white students left in EBR comprising less than 12% of the student population of only 43,000. The rest of the white students have mostly moved to Livingston, Ascension, Zachary and Central. Many others are in private and parochial schools. Their families are still part of the greater Baton Rouge population, but the students are pretty much re-segregated. Of the three breakaway districts, only Zachary has a well integrated student body with 44% black students. Baker is almost all black and Central is predominately white. I think it is correct to say that court ordered desegregation in Baton Rouge has been a dismal failure.



This new round of education reform is also supposed to be all about equal opportunity, particularly for students from low income families. The concept of mixing races is not the primary emphasis of the recent school reform although the demographic data shows that it is mostly black students who are considered to be “trapped” in so called “failing schools”. Governor Jindal and Superintendent White's theory is that by providing opportunities for low income families to transfer their children to private and charter schools, the free market will work to provide most children with an improved education. This is supposed to happen because some students will benefit by moving to better schools and the remaining students will benefit because the traditional public schools will have to improve or die in the competition for students. To Jindal and his supporters, it looks like an obvious solution. Privatization and the free markets are bound to finally transform Louisiana education from failure to success.



If we look more closely at the track record of the reform movement in Louisiana, it turns out that success of the Governor's plan is far from assured. The New Orleans Recovery District which is held up as the model for reform, upon close examination is not very successful. When all the schools that were below the state average in performance were taken over by the Recovery District in New Orleans, some of the more sophisticated charter groups were able to use a process that attracted highly motivated students and parents while culling out low achievers to gain an advantage over other schools. This handful of schools have demonstrated up to “B” level success, while almost all other Recovery district schools remain at “D” and “F” levels. The much criticized East Baton Rouge system for example, performs significantly better overall than the New Orleans Recovery District. So this begs the question; why are the reformers so eager to apply the New Orleans reform model to EBR?



It turns out that the few “successful” charter schools use a formula that has worked very well for many years for the successful private schools but also for the many successful public magnet schools. This formula can be summarized by one word; Exclusivity. The best way for a school to be effective is to be exclusive of low performing or poorly motivated students. While the traditional public schools have been forced by both the U. S. Department of Education and our own State Department of Education to try to educate every student regardless of motivation or often serious disciplinary behavior, the successful schools choose to work mainly with the successful students. If we look at the transfer records for the higher performing charters in the New Orleans Recovery District, we find an extremely high turnover rate. That's because these mostly unregulated schools toss kids out who do not perform well or who habitually disrupt the education of other students.

There is another side to the Recovery District that is carefully hidden from the eyes of the media and the public. In almost every case where a so called failing school was taken over by the RSD with no significant change in the student population, average student performance has actually declined!

(see my post of March 23) Superintendent White is trying desperately to cover up an embarrassing failure of all 12 takeover schools outside of New Orleans. Unfortunately the news media has been compliant in allowing the RSD to falsely claim success. The fact is that both the New Orleans voucher students and charter schools have continued sub-par performance. Except for the few charters that are allowed to counsel out poorly motivated and non-compliant students, charters and vouchers are failing to deliver.

At the same time that charters are allowed to be generally free of interference, our LDOE pushes traditional public schools to implement a program called Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS) in the place of enforcing effective discipline. The highly touted (by the LDOE) PBIS system often results in classrooms plagued by disruptive students who are allowed to interfere with the education process day after day with minimal consequences. The combination of restrictive discipline rules for special education students and state and legal pressure discouraging student suspension plagues many public schools. That's why the most common complaint of parents who want to pull their children out of public schools is that they fear for the safety of their child and feel that classrooms are too chaotic and dumbed down to provide effective instruction. The real problem in low performing schools is not lack of teacher expertize or commitment. The real problem is the destruction of an effective learning environment by the lack of order, discipline and respect for teachers.

Let me describe what I think will be the real result of major education reforms now taking place in Louisiana. (1) The new breakaway districts will drain even more white and affluent students from the large school systems producing mostly segregated districts. (2) Very few minority and poor students will be accepted by the private and parochial schools that maintain good standards. The only students who will be allowed to retain their vouchers are those who work hard and follow the rules. (3) Takeover charters will continue providing a very poor education. (4) The new virtual charter schools will serve a growing number of students whose parents want them out of the increasingly chaotic public schools. Many of these students will fail to receive an adequate education because of the lack of structure of virtual schools. (5) Public schools will experience further erosion of high performing (black and white) students because of the approval of new charter schools throughout the state by BESE. These new charters will cherry pick the best students from the remaining public schools. The end results of reform will be an increasingly segregated system of schools with even fewer opportunities for most poor and minority students. Expect Louisiana's prison population to grow.



When you add to the above, the general demoralization and decline of the teaching profession caused by increased focus on personnel policies based on test results, we can expect a very dismal future for our Louisiana school systems. Jindal and White will have moved on to other careers by then.

Teachers Are Right to be Concerned

The attempt to base all personnel decisions on student test results

Governor Jindal and his state superintendent John White believe that basing all school personnel decisions on student performance as measured by state tests will produce dramatic improvements in student performance. The legislation that was recently passed is based on the incorrect assumption that the quality of teaching is the most important factor in the academic performance of students. In one of its descriptions of the Act 54 evaluation system, the LDOE makes the following assertion:

 “Research has shown that teacher effectiveness is the greatest determinant of student outcomes followed closely by principal effectiveness.”

This statement is patently incorrect! It ignores or severely underestimates the influence of socioeconomic factors that can have a dominant impact on the education process. Click here to view the Educators for All analysis of this potentially harmful  misinterpretation of research on student performance.  In addition, many education researchers question the accuracy and validity of the value added formulas in setting expected academic gains for both high performing and low performing students.

In basing school reform efforts on major distortions of education research, the new legislation chooses to target large numbers of professional educators for extreme sanctions based on student test scores. The legislation mandates that personnel decisions including layoff, dismissal, and merit pay will be based on an untested value added system that may often produce invalid results. (Click on this link to read about invalid results in other states) Such misguided and punitive policies could cause general demoralization of teachers in Louisiana resulting in many dedicated educators leaving the profession. Teachers should be concerned about the following mandates of HB 974:

• The use of seniority will be banned in the selection of teaching personnel for dismissal in the event of layoff. The primary criteria for layoff, once categories of personnel are identified for layoff, will be the performance of teachers on the Act 54 evaluation. Serious budget shortfalls in many local school systems caused by the Governor's freeze in the MFP and unfunded State mandates may force layoffs of significant numbers of teachers. Erratic and inaccurate results of the new evaluation could result in the dismissal of many competent, dedicated, experienced teachers who happen to be fall victim to errors in this untested system.


• For 80% of all school systems in the state (any school system rated C or below) employment and retention of all professional staff from superintendents to teachers, must be based upon the achievement of student performance targets. The renewal of local superintendent's contracts will be contingent upon the achievement of goals which include the percentage of teachers who are rated effective or highly effective and student performance and graduation rates. Principals will be rated based partly on the number of teachers on their faculties who are rated effective or highly effective. The new law is designed to encourage dismissal of significant numbers of teachers based upon the Act 54 evaluation.


• The Act 54 evaluation plan was supposed to base 50% of the teacher's evaluation on the Principal's qualitative evaluation, and 50% on the value added quantitative measure. Yet in certain circumstances, the evaluation is automatically skewed toward producing an “ineffective” evaluation. The following rule is part of the present Act 54 evaluation plan:  “As a final check on evaluator bias and assurance that no educator in need of assistance is overlooked, educators receiving an Ineffective rating in either measure [qualitative or quantitative] will be rated overall as Ineffective and provided intensive support.”  This arbitrary rule violates the requirements of Act 54 for the teachers who happen to fall into this particular category. The real “bias” of the evaluation seems to be in favor of classifying  teachers as ineffective.

• The present plans for implementation of the Act 54 evaluation require that 10% of the teachers evaluated in the state tested subjects and grades must be rated ineffective just as 10% must be rated highly effective. The 10% rated ineffective are to be placed on a path to possible dismissal and the 10% rated highly effective are to be placed on a pathway to tenure and merit pay. It is not clear how or if this 10% rule applies to teachers of non-tested grades or subjects. It is also not clear whether or not the 10% ineffective factor will be continued for one year, two years , several years, or without limitation. If the system continues to classify 10% of teachers as ineffective for several years, there could be a very large number of teachers targeted for dismissal. However, if it is assumed that the evaluation system should result in improvement in the overall performance of teachers over time, it is not logical that the system would continue to find a particular percentage of teachers unsatisfactory over an extended period of time. Such inconsistencies in the evaluation plan leads educators to believe that the system has not been carefully thought out.


• HB 974 mandates that all teacher salary schedules be revised by January 2013 to go into effect for the 2013-14 school year based on three factors:  effectiveness, demand, and years of experience. By law no one factor of the three can account for more than 50% of the salary calculation. All teachers rated effective or above would have their present salary grandfathered at at least at their 2012-13 level, but regular step increases may no longer be guaranteed. Advanced degrees would become part of the demand factor and may have lower weights in the new schedules. These mandatory revisions of salary schedules may result in teachers having salaries frozen for several years or for the remainder of their teaching career. The new salary schedules may result in teachers who have worked for years to obtain advanced degrees not being compensated as expected according to previous policies. School boards under pressure from budget limitations may be tempted to provide only minimal weighting to years of experience and advanced degrees. Such salary revisions may actually result in the lowering of average Louisiana teacher salaries in the next few years.


• As discussed in my post of last week, the revision of the tenure law makes this designation nothing more than a status symbol. It provides almost no real protection to teachers who are recommended for dismissal.

Teachers are right to be concerned!

Governor's Education "Deform" Passes Senate

Click on this link to read the Times Picayune article about HB 974.



HB 974 passed the Louisiana Senate Wednesday afternoon by a vote of 23-16. I will report the names of the Senators voting for and against the bill in my next post. The bill must now go back to the House floor for a vote because several amendments were added on the Senate floor. If the House approves the bill as amended, it would then go to the Governor for his signature. If the House rejects the amended bill, it would be sent to a conference committee that would most likely be controlled by allies of the Governor who would probably act to put the bill back close to its original form.



This an issue because the amendments to the bill may make it slightly more difficult for teachers to be fired for invalid reasons or because of personality conflicts between the teacher and the principal. One amendment added by Senator Adley would allow that a teacher who received a highly effective rating on the quantitative portion of the Act 54 evaluation, but an unsatisfactory rating by the principal on the qualitative portion of the evaluation, a chance to be reevaluated by a separate team of evaluators. I believe this scenario would be a rare occurrence that would affect very few teachers, but it is still good to have it in the bill. Unfortunately there is no such reconsideration for a teacher who receives a highly effective rating from his/her principal but who because of glitches in the value added formula or because of a class composition that does not perform as the mathematical model predicts it should, receives an ineffective rating on the quantitative portion. That teacher, according to the current plans by Superintendent White must be rated “ineffective” no matter how highly the principal has rated the teacher. The bottom line is that HB 974 does so much damage to the teaching profession based on ill conceived theories of teacher culpability for student under performance that no amendments can make it acceptable to the profession, in my opinion.



HB 976, which greatly expands charter schools, and adds almost unlimited vouchers for more students to attend private schools at taxpayer expense passed the Senate also. Senator Appel handled this bill as part of the Governor's reform package. HB 976 is equally ill conceived, and destructive to public education as HB 974. Unbelievably, in the name of education reform, this bill drops all education credentials for persons teaching in charter schools! My question is where were the deans of the Colleges of Education when this travesty to professional educators was debated in committee? How can they now justify the professional education curriculum in their colleges since they have not bothered to object? Maybe the Chancellor of their university said they should remain quiet for fear that the college funding would be further reduced by our all powerful governor. There is absolutely no excuse for this deafening silence!



Senator Appel in describing HB 974 and HB976 made it abundantly clear that he and the Governor believe that teachers are totally responsible for the performance or lack of performance of all students. In his introduction to HB 974, Appel portrayed all 700,000 plus students and their parents as hard working and hungry for a good education which they are being denied by many teachers! I just wish I could require him to substitute teach in one of our public schools plagued by absenteeism, discipline problems and disrespect for teachers. He would not survive even one day! Such an attitude by lawmakers and the Governor demonstrates a horrendous level of disrespect for the teaching profession. . . . . in my opinion!

Capitol Rally April 4

Educators, concerned parents and school board members should make every effort to attend the rally on the capitol steps this Wednesday morning starting at 9:00 a.m. If you care about the education profession and the future of public schools please attend so your protest can be seen by the legislature and the public!



In case you had any doubt . . .  HB 974 basically does away with due process for all educators, even those that are rated "highly effective". Just read the bill carefully. For example, the revision of the tenure law on page 12 amounts to a cynical hoax. It changes the tenure hearing process from a hearing before the local school board to a hearing before a three member panel. But two of the members are chosen by the local superintendent! The superintendent directly chooses one member, another member is the teacher's principal, and the third member is chosen by the teacher. This amounts to a kangaroo court. If the principal and the superintendent have agreed beforehand to dismiss the teacher, the teacher does not have a chance. It makes a mockery of due process.



The teacher can appeal to the courts but the expense of this action may be prohibitive for most teachers. In addition the language for judicial appeal is changed to remove the language "if found guilty" so that the review panel does not have to prove anything to allow dismissal. On page 13, line 22, the new language limits the court review to allow overturning the dismissal if the dismissal is found to be "arbitrary and capricious".



This sorry process applies to so called tenured teachers without regard to their Act 54 performance rating! Getting an effective rating does not protect any teacher from dismissal. For example, if a teacher refuses to sell tickets at the school football games, his/her job could be jeopardized. This new law allows the local superintendent to rewrite any teacher's job description to include after school duties, tutoring or even Saturday work etc. If the teacher refuses, he/she could be dismissed for willful neglect of duties. So basically all teachers become "at will" employees who serve at the pleasure of the local superintendent if this bill passes. 



To add insult to injury, HB 976 does away with the need for teacher certification for persons teaching in the new charter schools. You had to complete a teacher education program and pass the NTE or Praxis exam to become a teacher. These charter school teachers are exempted from all that unnecessary red tape.  Superintendent John White says he sees no special benefit to teacher education credentials (that may be because he has minimal credentials himself) or even National Board Certification, and the legislature is going along with him by passing this legislation.



In addition, the voucher schools will have basically no accountability except that which the Jindal controlled BESE decides to implement. Students in the public schools must pass the high stakes tests in 4th and 8th grades to be promoted, and all public school students must pass end of course exams to graduate.  But students attending the private voucher schools funded by taxpayer dollars can be promoted to the next grade even if they do no pass the state tests. There is also no requirement that voucher students pass the state end of course tests in high school in order to graduate. This double standard hypocrisy is called the Jindal Education Reform Plan!

Holly Boffy is Wrong

Holly Boffy, a teacher turned politician has now come to the conclusion that the current discontent among teachers is really just a small minority disturbance caused by the "teacher unions". What a ridiculous politically motivated whine! I hope my readers can take the time to read the top story in The Education Week Teacher section this week. It is an account of the evaluation experience that the teachers in Louisiana will soon be subjected to. This Florida teacher likens her experience to Dante's rings of hell. Please read also the blog this week by Dianne Ravitch. She has some pointed remarks about what is now happening in Louisiana.



Ms Boffy is wrong! She has sold her soul to the non-educator "reformers" who would have the public believe that the under performance of many Louisiana students should be totally and permanently placed upon the shoulders of teachers. These reformers like White and Jindal talk about honoring and "empowering" teachers while they systematically dismantle both the profession and the public schools our children depend upon. The unions had nothing to do with these false charges against teachers. The unions had nothing to do with the claim that the present evaluation system does not rate enough teachers is unsatisfactory. The fact that one third of our students in Louisiana are performing below grade level is used as justification by the reformers that the new evaluation system must classify at least 10% of all teachers as "ineffective" each year. This is not an evaluation system, it is a purge designed to rid Louisiana of the imagined incompetent, lazy teachers that are holding our students back.



How will Ms Boffy and the other reformers feel when several years from now after many good teachers' careers have been destroyed, and the student scores will not have changed significantly? How will they feel when the voucher students and the charter students still continue to perform below grade level? How would they feel if a system labeled one of their own children as "below average"?  Surely it must still be the teacher's fault! Just fire this batch and get some new ones. Mark Twain once said "Tis sad but true, that half the American citizens are below average." In the heat of the education reform movement we have created a Lake Wobegon Effect where all of the children are supposed to be above average or by golly the teachers will pay!



I do not believe the average members of the public believe teachers are to blame for all the ills of society. But I also believe that the general public will not respect teachers if the teachers do not respect themselves enough to fight for their profession.



Please for the sake of the teaching profession, do not let this scare tactic about teacher unions or the "good teachers" verses the "bad teachers" distract you from fighting back. Please contact your legislators over and over again if necessary and plan on participating in the protest at the Capitol on April 4.

Please Contact Senators

The phone number for the Senate switchboard is 225-342-2040. Please telephone your senator to ask that he/she oppose the Governor's legislative package. If you cannot get through to your senator leave a message asking him/her to oppose HB 974, HB 976, SB 603, and SB 597. Have you filled out the Senate Protest slip provided for you at the LAE website? It's easy to do. Just go to  http://www.lae.org/.

MASS EDUCATOR AND PARENT PROTEST PLANNED FOR APRIL 4 AT THE CAPITOL

PLEASE START NOW TO MAKE PLANS TO ATTEND THIS MAJOR PUSH TO DEFEAT THE LEGISLATION THAT EDUCATORS BELIEVE WILL DO IRREPARABLE HARM TO PUBLIC EDUCATION!



Please check this blog regularly for updates on the legislation and for more details on the mass protest planned for April 4.

Senate Slows Jindal Train

Louisiana Educator Poll shows little faith in Governor's reform bills

The most recent poll of readers of this blog indicates almost no confidence that firing teachers using the Act 54 value-added system will result in improved student performance on state tests. The poll shows that only 3% of  the 1200 plus readers who responded believe that student performance will improve significantly. An additional 29% indicated that their may be a small gain in student performance initially which would stall because very little is being done to address the root causes of student under performance. My personal belief (even though this was not addressed in the poll) is that beefing up early childhood education could make a real difference. One part of the governor's legislation, HB 933, proposes to improve early childhood education. But with no adequate funding for early childhood education, (the Governor turned down federal funding for this recently) I believe the Governor's legislation will amount to window dressing.



Reform Package Expected to Allow For More Deliberation in The Senate

Several Senators have insisted that Jindal floor leaders allow time for adequate briefing of Senators on the the Governor's education reform package. Senator Appel has agreed to have the State Superintendent and others provide briefing sessions for senators before they are required to vote on the package.



Well, don't expect that briefing to be "fair and balanced". Educators in the field who really understand how destructive this legislation will be for children and for professional educators need to do their own "briefing" of the legislators. Please use your creativity to set up local meetings with senators in their districts so that educators can engage them in question and answer sessions. I also encourage my readers to go to the LAE website at http://www.lae.org/ and fill out one of the Senate slip protest forms for your senator.



A Letter From a Biology Teacher

The following letter was sent to me recently by a young Biology teacher. I believe it expresses the feelings of many teachers on the current education reform efforts:



To Louisiana Educator:

Louis Pasteur is one of the greatest scientists of all time. With his medical breakthroughs, he extended the lives of millions of people at his time and still today. When he was acknowledged for his accomplishments in 1883, he replied:

“Oh my father and mother (who were both poor and uneducated), it is to you that I owe everything. Thy enthusiasm, my valiant mother, thou passed it on to me. If I have always associated the greatness of science and the greatness of country, it is because I was filled with the feelings that thou hadst inspired. And thou, my dear father, whose life was hard as thy hard trade, thou last shown me what patience and prolonged effort can do. It is to thee that I owe perseverance in daily work. Not only hadst thou qualities which go to make a useful life, but also admiration for great men and women. To look upward, learn to the utmost, to rise ever higher, such was thy teaching.”

I wonder; did the schools he attended get an A, B, C, D or F on their school performance score?



I have been teaching now for 13 years, in East Baton Rouge and surrounding parishes, following in the footsteps of “parents” who were in the profession for a combined 65 years. We (previous Jindal supporters) constantly speak of how rewarding the classroom can be, knowing we have the chance to make a difference. However, the conversation is quickly over shadowed by the new era of education-accountability.



Yes, teachers should be accountable; that goes without saying. But to what end? According to Governor Jindal, teachers are now responsible for high school pregnancies. (Tuesday’s paper) Will there ever come a time when we face reality, dare to be politically incorrect and say that parents are equally or more so responsible for their child’s success? Of course not. That would make sense. In the modern classroom, technology is continually integrated, methods of communication between school and home are at an all time high, and teachers are required to attend days of professional development to further enhance knowledge of various learning strategies. Both weekly and daily lesson plans are created to map what will be covered and how it relates to GLE’s (grade level expectations). And above all, we are instructed to reach all 120+ students on an individual basis based on their unique learning style. To make parents aware of public school’s “expectations”, schools were recently given standard letter grades that reflect their overall performance. The grade is based on how well students perform on tests. I taught at (X) High School which received an A and now I teach at (Y) High which received a D; I must have regressed tremendously as a teacher. The SPS, (school performance score) also takes into account graduation rates. So educators are also responsible for attendance and dropout rates. If I had decided to drop out of high school, I am pretty sure my parents would have had something to say about it; my school would have simply provided the paperwork.



We need reform, but not in the classroom. The first public school was opened in 1635 and the basic premise of school--teach/learn-- hasn’t changed. What have changed are the attitudes and ambitions of those who attend. But, when it comes to action and questioning how we can fix what’s broken, it always comes back on the schools. What’s wrong with education? How does your child’s school measure up? And now that measuring stick--whether or not little Johnny can pass a test--will affect my livelihood as a professional. Has anyone making the rules sat in a public school classroom in the last ten years?



In summary, I got into education hoping to make a difference in a child’s life. In my years of experience, I feel I have reached some, not all and therefore I will always have room to grow. With responsibilities continually stacking up, and salaries now being manipulated in front of our faces, the classroom does not seem to be as rewarding as it once was. Schools are trying everything in the arsenal to improve academically and yet, sub par scores seem to be solely represented as a reflection of the schools’ efforts, or lack thereof. The reality is on any given day a classroom teacher may have an hour of face time with a child within a 24 hour period, and that time is divided among all the students in the class. Are the academic expectations put on schools unrealistic? No. But, they CANNOT and WILL NOT solely be reached in the classroom. Reflect on Pasteur’s homage and let’s ALL be accountable. It’s the promise of education, and our future.