But this year, it was different. This year, we were presented with a "pre-filled" academic plan with mandates from the state. This year, it was not innocuous, it became increasingly worrisome, and controversial, ending in a postponement to next week. We passed through the universal screener (testing we're already doing) and state-wide curriculum (more standardization), implementation of the Common Core Standards, and other state mandates, without much debate. I myself, was in a bit of of an apathetic mood.
But when we got to implementation of the Danielson model for classroom observations, red flags came up. My colleagues, who are active in the union, started to speak up. We knew that this is part of the new teacher evaluation and we knew that we are in the process of negotiating a new contract in which agreements about teacher evaluation are being considered. The vice principal tried to salvage the situation and offered an amendment to reassure us that this was to be a pilot. I read ahead to the next item: "Implement the Effective Educator System" which includes the four parts that are being piloted this year: Classroom Observations, Student Learning Objectives, Tripod (Student) Survey and Student Growth Percentile.
Sometimes it takes my brain a few minutes to get into the proper gear, but when I read that, I knew I had to speak up. I asked if we had ever included evaluation in our academic plan before. No. I expressed how this academic plan seems overwhelmingly top-down which seems to go against the whole idea of the financial and academic plan process being collaborative. I get that there will be mandates that the employer requires, but then why go through the process of seeking consensus, of appearing to be collaborative? My principal told us that the principals said the same thing at their meeting when they were told they had to do this. We applauded her. Yet, they were told to just do it. She tried to move the meeting along and asked us to approve the amended item. There was no response except that we said we needed to get our union's take on this. I think we were shell-shocked. So the meeting will resume next week.
I immediately called our Uniserv Director who said he would look into it. Two days later, he said he got this response from his colleagues: (Paraphrasing because lotus notes is down) They (teachers) can leverage their right to an open, collaborative and democratic process in school-based budgeting decisions.
Okaaaay. That is what we are doing. But we are being told it is a "state mandate."
I wanted to find out if this was a state directive. I still did not get an answer on this. As far as I know, it is only coming from our complex. If it is, then we deal with it on our complex, to our complex area superintendent. But if it is a state directive, which our CAS and our principals say it is, then we need to move and move fast. The state DOE is out of line, increasingly authoritarian.
In what way is the state out of line? According to HSTA, it is not grieveable. But that doesn't mean we can't and shouldn't protest. This is what I had believed: the idea of Act 51 was to decentralize decision-making and bring control to the schools. It gave the principals more authority, and involved stakeholders through the School Community Councils, who were supposedly elected by their constituents. The principal puts together a plan based on school needs. It seems that principals vary in how much input they get from their faculties. At my school, we go through both the financial and academic plans and we take a show of hands to indicate agreement. Then it is brought to the SCC for recommendation. And so it goes.
I did a little digging to find out why these "pre-filled" academic plans seem different, as I said at the meeting, "it feels oppressive and I am getting the heebie-jeebies." I found a speech given by Randy Moore, the recently retired assistant superintendant in charge of facilities, who was responsible for the implementation of Act 51.
He said: "The change mandated by Act 51 will turn the Department of Education upside down. It will end command and control, where not only what to do, but how to do it, are determined at the state office and communicated down through the organization to the schools."
I looked up Act 51 itself, called the Reinventing Education Act of 2004, which brought huge changes to public education in Hawaii. I pulled this quote: "It is the legislature's intent to place a far greater number of decisions, and a much higher percentage of moneys, directly in the hands of individual schools and their leaders."
So my heebie-jeebies come from the real world. Act 51 was supposed to lessen bureaucracy, lessen a top-down management system. It was supposed to be empowering to the local level, as it was a response to then-governor Lingle's plan to completely dismantle our one-district school system and create local school districts. We supported Act 51 because we were against Lingle's policies, and what could be more local than giving power to the school itself?
Why the mandates in the pre-filled academic plans? The Department wants to implement the Educator Effectiveness System, which was a huge component of their Race To The Top application. We are now in negotiations for which this is a contentious issue. The union's surveys and focus group sessions have provided data that the current pilot of the EES does not adequately address the concerns of the system and work out the kinks. In fact, it appears that the Department has not used the piloting for this purpose, but appears superficial, a pilot in appearance only. We are asking for changes in the system and another year to pilot it, using the pilot authentically, to collaboratively ensure that the system works as a fair and reliable way to evaluate teachers.
Perhaps the Department saw the Academic Plan review process as a way to work-around the union. Perhaps, someone at the Department says, hey, if we can get all the schools to approve these "mandated" items in their Academic Plans, we can say we got the buy-in of all the stakeholders, including teachers, and we don't have to get an agreement on this through the union.
Someone tell me another reason why this is happening? What else could it be? I am open to ideas.
If there is a chance that I could be right on this, then we need to do something. At the very least, we can tell our teacher representatives on our SCCs that we do not approve state mandates relating to evaluation. Our teacher reps can try to convince the other stakeholders to not approve this, saying that we cannot approve something that we know nothing about, that has not been properly piloted to ensure fairness. If the principals override the SCC's recommendation, as they seem to have the right to do, then at least we are on record as opposing, which can be reported to the federal government. They cannot use this means as a way to show stakeholder support. We can announce to the media that this is happening.
I know there will be spin that we are afraid of being held accountable. There is nothing more accountable than having an open door policy. Come into my classroom and see what I do. Help me out while you're here. I have nothing to hide. We only want to be evaluated fairly. It is our career, our chosen profession. We are afraid of being deprived of our career, losing our ability to do what we love to do based on an unfair and unreliable system. We are afraid of losing good teachers because of an unfair and unreliable system. It is not only receiving an unfair bad evaluation that we are afraid of- we are afraid of a pressure-cooker system, even if we get good evaluations.
And losing good teachers not only hurts teachers, of course it hurts students. Losing good teachers will be devastating to students. Yes, they will be replaced, but they too will go. It will be a revolving door. Only business owners who love the low-wage personnel model see this as a good thing. When all of public school teaching in the US becomes like the Peace Corps (the TFA model), then we will know we have gone into backwards-land. Will we ever be able to escape?
