https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/we-are-entering-educational-death-row-human-bodies-cannot-sustain
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Occupy EES On Facebook
Cool--
Check it out. Learn about the EES.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/586954848093176/
Check it out. Learn about the EES.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/586954848093176/
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Hawaii Subs Observed With Danielson Tool
Why are substitute teachers being observed with the "Danielson Tool" in the Keaau, Kau, Pahoa Complex?
Subs are vulnerable enough. Why are they being given their "rating sheet" after these observations, just as regular teachers are? They have not received any "Danielson training" and why demean them further. Subbing is difficult enough without and administrator or pseudo-administrator such as a "Literacy Coach" standing there checking things off a clipboard list. Why not offer real assistance and/or friendliness to teachers, instead?
Is there such an absence of data that substitute teachers must now be added in to school data? Why put even more stress on substitute teachers who do not work under a contract such as regular teachers in Bargaining Unit 05? This seems not only unethical but also abusive and is an obvious show of power over a vulnerable substitute teacher.
Subs are vulnerable enough. Why are they being given their "rating sheet" after these observations, just as regular teachers are? They have not received any "Danielson training" and why demean them further. Subbing is difficult enough without and administrator or pseudo-administrator such as a "Literacy Coach" standing there checking things off a clipboard list. Why not offer real assistance and/or friendliness to teachers, instead?
Is there such an absence of data that substitute teachers must now be added in to school data? Why put even more stress on substitute teachers who do not work under a contract such as regular teachers in Bargaining Unit 05? This seems not only unethical but also abusive and is an obvious show of power over a vulnerable substitute teacher.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Opt Out of High Stakes Testing and High Stakes Teacher Evaluation
It is time to say no to high stakes.
Teachers, we need to stand up and say we will not lie to make our EES data look good in order to keep our jobs.
Principals are lying to teachers. This is not okay.
Students are under too much testing pressure.
How can we have a voice?
One way is to email our HSTA Uniserve:
ryamanaka@hsta.org
Please email Rae with your experiences!
Now is the time. Please don't wait. We owe this to our students and to great teachers that we ourselves had when we were in school Don't let them down! They are counting on us to speak out and do the right thing and this means saying what is happening.
Neutral is not good.
Teachers, we need to stand up and say we will not lie to make our EES data look good in order to keep our jobs.
Principals are lying to teachers. This is not okay.
Students are under too much testing pressure.
How can we have a voice?
One way is to email our HSTA Uniserve:
ryamanaka@hsta.org
Please email Rae with your experiences!
Now is the time. Please don't wait. We owe this to our students and to great teachers that we ourselves had when we were in school Don't let them down! They are counting on us to speak out and do the right thing and this means saying what is happening.
Neutral is not good.
Friday, January 23, 2015
Scholastic
Strange how there would be disagreement over ordering Scholastic Magazine and Teen Ink for my classroom, the argument being that these are not aligned to the Common Core. Huh? My supervisor won't sign my purchase order for these...saying everything is on the computer anyway.
Is this a case of a rat biting its own tail or a snake devouring itself?
Can children no longer flip through pages of a magazine (geared especially for them) during free moments in class?
Or, is it only disadvantaged children being ripped off?
Is this a case of a rat biting its own tail or a snake devouring itself?
Can children no longer flip through pages of a magazine (geared especially for them) during free moments in class?
Or, is it only disadvantaged children being ripped off?
Friday, December 19, 2014
Hope On The Horizon
This is a good write-up about what's happened. This spells it out plain an simple. What a relief to read.
http://www.livingindialogue.com/pillars-reform-collapsing-reformers-contemplate-defeat/
Thursday, November 13, 2014
The EES: Purely Stupid, Utimately Insane
Susan Kay Anderson
Classroom Teacher, Keaau High School
Testimony for BOE 11-18-14 Meeting
10:30 a.m.
Agenda Item IV:
Discussion on the Department of Education's consideration of deferring use of the Smarter Balanced assessment in the Educator Effective System (EES)
Please consider deferring the use of the Smarter Balanced assessment in the EES, the stakes are too high. The EES has created a climate of barbarity at schools akin to the climate of fear in existence during World War II in Germany. Teachers and their students must comply and score well....or else a "Final Solution" is in place as termination or pay freeze for teachers.
Students are more than a test score, more than a number. So are teachers. We need to stop gambling with students and educators and stop damaging lives. When a number or score determines the quality of student learning and work of an educator, American education is deadened and killed. Learning remains static, inflexible and unchangeable. When education, educators, and their students are denied a progressive or experiential process in the wide range of teaching and learning, then there are many problems which arise; namely injustice, bias, and unethical treatment by all and to all concerned. Teachers and their students are the most vulnerable victims of this abuse.
Test scores should be used as part of a continuum, and are meant as a diagnostic tool, not as an end point of learning and a way to punish teachers (withholding pay increases and even job retention). The stakes are too high with the value of test scores and EES ratings deemed more important than what learning is meant to be: progressive and a process. Life long learning, curiosity, exploration, and questioning (all cornerstones of an American democracy) are dulled, deadened, and killed by the continued use of the EES.
Please consider using the EES, student test scores and "teacher evaluation" activities solely for reflection and discretionary use by individual teachers and not as an instrument of torture and destruction to education, educators, and their students. Instead, please use funding to secure social services at the schools. We need counselors, librarians, alternative programs, healthy food, and facilities maintenance at the public schools, not more private contractors and their invented demands. Please put the funding there and not towards endless student testing and punitive evaluation of teachers. Treat teachers as other professional state workers are treated: full-time pay with benefits in exchange for a day's work spent educating citizens of the future.
Classroom Teacher, Keaau High School
Testimony for BOE 11-18-14 Meeting
10:30 a.m.
Agenda Item IV:
Discussion on the Department of Education's consideration of deferring use of the Smarter Balanced assessment in the Educator Effective System (EES)
Please consider deferring the use of the Smarter Balanced assessment in the EES, the stakes are too high. The EES has created a climate of barbarity at schools akin to the climate of fear in existence during World War II in Germany. Teachers and their students must comply and score well....or else a "Final Solution" is in place as termination or pay freeze for teachers.
Students are more than a test score, more than a number. So are teachers. We need to stop gambling with students and educators and stop damaging lives. When a number or score determines the quality of student learning and work of an educator, American education is deadened and killed. Learning remains static, inflexible and unchangeable. When education, educators, and their students are denied a progressive or experiential process in the wide range of teaching and learning, then there are many problems which arise; namely injustice, bias, and unethical treatment by all and to all concerned. Teachers and their students are the most vulnerable victims of this abuse.
Test scores should be used as part of a continuum, and are meant as a diagnostic tool, not as an end point of learning and a way to punish teachers (withholding pay increases and even job retention). The stakes are too high with the value of test scores and EES ratings deemed more important than what learning is meant to be: progressive and a process. Life long learning, curiosity, exploration, and questioning (all cornerstones of an American democracy) are dulled, deadened, and killed by the continued use of the EES.
Please consider using the EES, student test scores and "teacher evaluation" activities solely for reflection and discretionary use by individual teachers and not as an instrument of torture and destruction to education, educators, and their students. Instead, please use funding to secure social services at the schools. We need counselors, librarians, alternative programs, healthy food, and facilities maintenance at the public schools, not more private contractors and their invented demands. Please put the funding there and not towards endless student testing and punitive evaluation of teachers. Treat teachers as other professional state workers are treated: full-time pay with benefits in exchange for a day's work spent educating citizens of the future.
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