[RSCT] Fw: Teachers' Letters hits EdWeek Commentary

[Monty Neill]

FW From Anthony Cody:

Today in print and online, Teachers' Letters to Obama can be seen in an 
Education Week commentary. Please come and leave comments.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/01/20/18cody_ep.h29.html

Teachers' Letters to Obama
The Sleeping Giant Stirs
By Anthony Cody


In November, I accidentally launched a groundswell. I posted an open letter 
to President Barack Obama online and invited other teachers to join me in 
speaking out. I was amazed by the response. Other teacher bloggers joined 
in, and more than 600 signed up for a Facebook group called Teachers' 
Letters to Obama. Over 100 eloquent letters have been posted thus far, and 
more come in every day.

The overwhelming message is that, although we supported President Obama as a 
candidate and continue to have hope today, we do not feel heard by this 
administration, and have grave concerns about many of the actions of U.S. 
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

These are not the whines of the ineffective. Many contributors hold National 
Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification and are leaders in 
their schools. If you want an in-depth window on what committed teachers are 
thinking, here it is.

On our test-centered accountability system:
“Our schools are struggling to inculcate in students a joy for learning. The 
rote-memorization, one-size-fits-all scripted programs, and testing-frenzied 
atmosphere is producing students who may eventually acquire basic skills but 
may have no interest in novels, no passion for mathematical thinking, and no 
curiosity about the past or present.

“Middle class parents (who can’t afford private schools) will continue to 
supplement their children’s education by paying for music and dance classes, 
instruction in foreign languages, summer science camps, exposure to art and 
performances, and so on. While such experiences used to be a part of the 
school day—and should be a part—now there is no time for anything other than 
reading and math, particularly in schools with low test scores.
“President Obama, do you recognize that these test-driven policies promoted 
by Arne Duncan will widen the achievement gap into a chasm? That our society 
will become even more inequitable?”
Elena Aguilar, Oakland, Calif.

“Last year, I had a student from a home for medically fragile children. She 
was a quadriplegic who could only turn her head about 35 degrees. All other 
use of her body had been destroyed in a car accident when she was 3. She was 
12 last year. She had moved around so much and been sick from her 
disabilities so often that she was seldom in school consistently. 
Cognitively, she was normal, but she was at a 1st grade level, not 6th 
grade. In six months, I took her up 2.5 grade levels, to 3.5 in reading and 
4.0 in math. I also made school fun for her, so she wanted to come to 
school—for the first time in her life! But she had to take the standard test 
in our state for 6th graders. She failed miserably.

“By the standards that you are setting, I am not a capable teacher. But I 
challenge you to find any Teach For America young student who could do what 
I did last year for that girl. Footnote: She has moved back with her family. 
Once she learned she did not pass the test, she is not going to school 
anymore.”
Sandee Palmquist, Redmond, Wash.

On the 'Race to the Top' initiative and tying teacher pay to test scores:
“Please look at the stakeholders sitting at the table. Testing companies 
have a vested interest in ensuring that students are subjected to more and 
more testing.

“The current focus on testing is a dangerous trend that threatens our role 
in the world as innovators and visionaries.”
Mary Tedrow, National Board Certified Teacher

“What if my students’ scores don’t magically jump to proficient or advanced 
this year despite my best efforts? Will I suddenly be identified as a ‘bad’ 
teacher, even though my last evaluator said I was in the top 1 percent of 
teachers he’d ever evaluated? This is a real question from a real teacher. 
How can you expect me to thrive if I bring my expertise to one of the most 
difficult teaching circumstances that can be found, and basically find 
myself threatened by my government with negative consequences if my best 
efforts aren’t enough to overcome all of the personal and societal ills of 
my students?”
Kathie Kienzle Marshall, Los Angeles Unified School District

“I’ll be damned if I teach to a test anymore. While merit pay, on the 
surface, is very attractive to someone like me—someone who could be making 
much more money working in a business environment that would probably be 
less stressful than my teaching job—I firmly believe it should not be tied 
to test scores.

“Pay me more because I stay after school for hours each week grading papers, 
tutoring students, working with yearbook editors, directing plays, planning 
lessons, doing research, and improving my teaching. Pay me more because I’m 
willing to serve on district committees to improve teaching systemwide. Pay 
me more because I travel at my own expense each year to conferences and 
workshops to gain fresh ideas and training to be a better teacher. Pay me 
more because I call and e-mail parents to update them on their child’s 
progress. Pay me more because I care enough about the kid whose parents are 
very suddenly and unexpectedly divorcing that I make sure to cut him a 
little slack in class and ask him how he is doing.
“Pay me more because I have made my classroom a safe haven, one where 
students drop in to tell me about their day or to ask for advice on how to 
deal with a problem in another class. Pay me more because I put my life and 
soul into this profession, to the detriment of my personal life, because I 
believe in the teenagers of America.”
Jolie Lindley, Henryville, Ind.

On the need for teachers to be heard in the education policy arena:
“We should also be trying to empower teachers to be leaders in their 
schools, districts, and beyond. We need those who work most directly with 
our students to be the change—if it is ever going to truly work.”
Tanya Judd Pucella

“Allow America’s teachers into your circle. Please create a National Forum 
for the Teacher Voice. We are policy leaders, researchers, authors, and 
curriculum experts. We work a second job on weekends to make ends meet, and 
then purchase classroom supplies from our own pockets. We know that the 
high-stakes tests that we are doing everything we can to help our students 
pass actually fail to equip them for jobs for which they must compete in the 
21st century.”
Jennifer L. Barnett, Alabama

Teachers have been treated as immovable objects in need of enormous policy 
levers to move us, but these messages reveal a profession hungry for change. 
That change will be unleashed when we are engaged as active partners in the 
process, as these letters offer. The full texts of the letters have been 
sent to President Obama and Secretary Duncan.

Anthony Cody

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