The maximum required commute time for students dropped to 75 minutes. (GothamSchools, Daily News)
Michael Mulgrew gave mayoral contenders permission to use his name in fundraising. (GothamSchools)
Three-quarters of New Haven’s Teach For America corp members left after two years. (N.H. Independent)
An audit into special education billing found the city regularly billed for phantom services. (Schoolbook)
Naomi Riley: Park Slope parents say they want diversity, but not necessarily in their schools. (Post)
The Daily News says too many students aren’t being prepared for changes in technology and science.
Louisiana is testing out “a la carte schools,” where classes come from a variety of sources. (Reuters)
Guest
If you cannot pass the LAST or your content exam, you probably shouldn’t be in the classroom? Is the bar also discriminatory?
Former Turnaround Teacher
I honestly can’t say if the test is discriminiatory, however it only tests general knowledge up to the High School level. I kind of agree that if you could not pass that test, you really shouldn’t be in the classroom.
Mr. Flerporillo
This case is just depressing. Note that the court didn’t find that any of the test’s specific content was racially biased. It found, in essence, that the test was too difficult, and that the city hadn’t done enough to show that the test had to be that difficult. In the court’s words, “the Board has failed to establish that the LAST cutoff scores accurately measured the minimum knowledge about the liberal arts and sciences that teachers need to be competent and avoid harming students.” So, in case anyone’s wondering, this is effectively the proper certification standard: Will your ignorance of the liberal arts and science actually harm your students?
BloombergMustGo
The article on the LAST is just pathetic. When we should, as teachers, be pushing for certification processes that prove we are qualified professionals, these idiots are turning the clock back.
On another front: “Three-quarters of New Haven’s Teach For America corps left the district after two years.” I’m sorry, but I laughed heartily when I read this one. This is the dirty little secret the deformers work so hard to hide. Churn ‘em in, churn ‘em out! The thing is that this is exactly what Bloomberg et.al. want, as it helps keep salary and benefit costs low. So what if it is at the expense of having qualified and experienced teachers?!
Larry Littlefield
Give me a break. The decision to move funds out of cash pay while working to increased retirement was joint between Bloomberg and the UFT. And all the unions have worked to cut starting salaries relative to the pay of those cashing in and moving out.
The only question is why Bloomberg went along with it. In his only response, he blamed arbitrators. But no arbitrators were involved in the UFT contract that increased the pay for new hires less than those of existing workers. Or in the pension increase for those cashing in and moving out followed almost immediately by reduced take home pay and then retirement benefits for new hires.
This is the union, not the reformers. They don’t do this in charter schools. We’re going back to new hires as low paid uncertified teachers at the highest tax burden in the country, and with very high school spending AND teacher wages and benefits overall. And that is a UFT win! Celebrate it, don’t deny it.
Larry Littlefield
And if you are going to deny it, how about this? Before ANYONE hired before the 2008 pension deal gets a raise, first pension system has to get out of the hole. Then all the education services cut to pay for the pension increases have to be restored.
And THEN the pay of those hired after 2008 has to be increased relative to the pay of those hired earlier, to even out any difference in the pension contributions and benefits, with all the increase in a more rapid rise to higher pay levels.
Agreed? No? Then don’t complain about who the city schools will be able to hire.
Ask
Regarding the last article about not being prepared for new technology and science I say this. When our system started closing labs, dumbing down curriculum, creating “magic kits” instead of the science stuff we grew up with (yes even with the radioactive stuff and mercury in the hand) we made a choice. Closing trade schools, art rooms, shop and anything not related to “core items” has now caused the drain of in creativity we have now. We all let that happen, you, me the system. TIme to bring it all back I say.
KitchenSink
I wonder if the judge’s kids attend a school where teachers can’t pass the LAST.
Mr. Flerporillo
I suspect not. I assume her children are all grown by now, but her husband is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ Norm
I knew quite a few excellent teachers who didn’t pass the LAST and were fired. Performance counts more than high stakes tests —-.
Randi’s call for a bar-like exam is a case of a craft union trying to raise a phony standard to narrow the supply of teachers.
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