A few months ago, I got this email from the NEA:
Dear Team NEA: This is an urgent appeal and I need your help!
On Tuesday , the Aspen Institute’s NCLB Commission issued its report proposing changes to the so-called No Child Left Behind Act. The Commission, co-chaired by former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson and former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes, has spent the past year gathering information about NCLB and preparing a detailed series of recommendations for changes to the law.
While the Commission’s report makes some positive recommendations in areas such as using growth models in the NCLB accountability system, unfortunately, many of the commission’s proposals are ill-conceived, and one in particular represents A SLAP AT EVERY TEACHER WHO HAS ALREADY ACHIEVED HIGHLY QUALIFIED STATUS UNDER NCLB.
The Commission would add on top of the current requirements a new Highly Qualified Effective Teacher” (HQET) requirement. This new mandate would apply to all reading, math, and science teachers. Such teachers would be evaluated in large part based on student learning gains as measured by standardized test scores. Another part of the rating would be based on a principal’s evaluation. It is only a matter of time before this could be imposed on all teachers!
Teachers in each state would be ranked and those in the top 75 percent each year would be considered a “highly qualified effective teacher.” Those who do not meet this HQET requirement would have three additional years to meet the mandate and would also receive individualized professional development. If they continue to not meet this mandate, their principal would send a letter to their students’ parents informing them their child’s teacher was not effective. If after two more years they still do not meet this mandate, they would not be allowed to teach in a Title I school.
As you know, the current NCLB law requires all teachers to meet a federally-mandated “highly qualified teacher” (HQT) definition, which requires all teachers to be fully licensed and certified plus demonstrate competency on each subject taught by either having a college major in that subject, passing an academic content test in that subject, or meeting their state’s High Objective Uniform State Standard of Evaluation.
Even though this current HQT requirement has caused teachers over the last five years to spend a lot of time filing paperwork and jumping through other hoops to meet this mandate, the Commission proposes adding more hoops for most of you to jump through!
I believe this is an ill-conceived proposal that sets teachers up for failure! For a summary of the proposal, NEA’s five reasons to oppose it, and our policies to improve teacher quality, please go to: www.nea.org/lac
Together we can stop these dangerous plans and instead convince Congress to provide teachers with the tools and resources they need to be successful. Here are two things you can do to help us stop this madness:
1. Immediately email your members of Congress (both your Representative and two U.S. Senators) and tell them to reject the NCLB Commission’s ill-conceived “highly qualified effective teacher” mandate. Ask them instead to support NEA’s Positive Agenda for ESEA Reauthorization. Go to our Legislative Action Center to send your email messages and for additional information on the HQET proposal.
2. Contribute in the next 24 hours to the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education to expand our efforts to block these proposals and advance our Positive Agenda. Collectively, the 3.2 million members of NEA can make a difference! Together we can reach our goal of ensuring that every child has a great public school. Thanks for your help. If you have any questions, please email eseainfo@nea.org
So, to summarize, teachers get ranked based on student improvement (not just raw test scores, which would be unfair) and also with an administrator review.
The top 75% of teachers are considered effective. Wonderful!
The remaining 25% of teachers are given three years to improve, and they are given individualized professional development to help them do so. Fantastic!
Despite this assistance, if the teacher fails to improve after three years, the parents are warned about this teacher’s poor performance. If the teacher fails to improve after five years (meaning that he never once managed to escape being in the worst 25% of the teachers in his state), he can no longer teach in most public schools. Sounds great! Why should a teacher who persists in performing miserably year after year be given the right to teach any longer?
I particularly love the line about the Commission “proposing more hoops for most of us to jump through.” First of all, most of us will be effective. Second, I hardly think getting your students’ achievement up to par would be considered a mere hoop to jump through; it is the essence of what we are paid to do!
So why exactly is the NEA so supportive of lousy teachers? Because they pay dues too?
Posted by mpullen 
