- Image courtesy of shutterstock.com
Here are some short items about TUSD, some of the positive things happening in the district which deserve to be spotlighted. The district gets plenty of bad press (I sometimes participate in the piling on) while the good stuff is too often ignored. Some of the items below were in the Star. Others are from Superintendent H.T. Sanchez’s regular Team Member Updates. Clearly Sanchez is putting the items in the best possible light, but they look good to me as well. TUSD has a right to crow when good things happen, and the rest of us benefit from hearing about positive developments.
• The Star’s Alexis Huicochea has a good piece about C.E. Rose, a K-8 school with 93% of its students on free or reduced lunch. Its students score far higher on state tests than most students from low income families. TUSD plans to turn the school into a district-run charter — that brings about $1,000 more per student to the school — and to try and replicate its success at two schools that were closed, Wakefield and Richey. They will reopen as charters.
• Another story covered by Huicochea is TUSD’s pledge to support all students no matter their immigration status, which received unanimous support from the board. According to Sanchez, “The designation is the first of its kind in the nation for a school district. It means we pledge to help all students pursue a higher education regardless of immigration status and it supports the April 9 National Educators’ Coming Out Day led by the Dream Educational Empowerment Program of United We Dream and Scholarships A-Z, an organization that helps undocumented immigrants attend college.”
• TUSD has stopped its yearly ritual of “firing” teachers because of funding uncertainties, then rehiring most of them later. It’s also beginning the process of hiring new teachers earlier than usual. According to Sanchez, “In the past, TUSD was among the last districts to post openings and take its first group of new candidates to the Board.” This means TUSD will have a better shot at picking up the best applicants before they’re hired elsewhere.
• When TUSD teachers retire, their benefits will continue through August. Previously, retiring teachers lost their benefits when they told the district of their plans to leave, which meant many retirees waited until August to inform the district. That meant replacement teachers had to be hired at the last minute or long-term subs had to fill in until a new teacher could be found. Now the hiring process can start earlier.
• TUSD is working with Pima County to allow county employees to send their children to the early learning centers the district is setting up for its employees. Similar deals are in the works with the City of Tucson and the University of Arizona.
This article appears in Mar 27 – Apr 2, 2014.
When C.E. Rose principal Stephen Trejo addressed the board last week, he told them that each student has a “data book.” He proudly described the joy of seeing a first grader use it to show her parents how she needs to improve her DIBELS score. (DIBELS is an early literacy assessment.) I nearly lost my lunch.
I’m not a teacher, but I have heard them complain about this assessment. It’s controversial and some claim that by forcing children to drill nonsense words, it confuses them and can hinder reading.
http://www.fairtest.org/dibels-pedagogy-ab…
But whether DIBELS is valuable or not, it is clear that the Rose “miracle” is about turning kids into good little test-takers. I sincerely hope that there are teachers at Rose who teach with joy and instill a love of learning in their students. But the image of a first grader proudly showing her parents her data book, instead of a story she wrote, leaves me cold.
In reply to Jana Happel’s comment:
I taught in public schools for many years. I am not overly fond of all the testing that passes for accountability in today’s public schools. But there is also the reality that being successful on these tests is the way that students get into more advanced classes, go to college, and get hired in good paying jobs. Ignoring the importance of these tests for students is not helpful for students.
My personal experience is that no amount of test taking skills can turn a student who has failed to master the coursework into a high performer on the tests. Let me say that again…a teacher can drill students all morning and all afternoon on test taking skills but if the student does not master the coursework they will not do well on the tests. Beyond that, many students who lack basic test taking skills, i.e. how to budget time during the test, will not be able to demonstrate just how well they have mastered the course material.
Perhaps even more importantly, the students at C.E. Rose feel a sense of accomplishment and are entitled to enjoy the recognition they have earned through their hard work. Frankly, the parents and teachers involved in the Rose community have done what they are supposed to do. Working together they have created a positive learning environment for the students at that school
One short comment: Damn, I love the commenters who come on my posts! This is an important, intelligent discussion/argument here, without any name calling or cheap shots. I’m seeing lots of that on lots of what I write. We need more of this kind of thing.
i love the photos of shorts, dave. turning C.E. Rose school[s] into charters: not so much.
carole
“TUSD has a right to crow when good things happen, and the rest of us benefit from hearing about positive developments.”
As an employee at the district, who has not always been fond of how things are run, I still appreciate this attitude. There are a lot of good people doing awesome things, and although I am one of the many who agree that we should concentrate less on making “good little test takers” out of children starting in grade K, the reality is standardized testing is how we, as educators, are judged…and that is not going away anytime soon. If people really care about this, then they need to vote and get involved. Teachers teach what is required and necessary for the students to know…not just for “the test”, but for life and their future success. Some do this better than others. TUSD is taking steps to educate their teachers, as well as their students, on more than testing prowess. But we still have a long way to go.
I agree that we should honor and celebrate the students and teachers at Rose who work hard and do what is expected of them. They didn’t ask for this system and must work within it and do so admirably. But it does not take away from those good works to criticize the milieu that has been created for them.
This month students will take the Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards test. But the standards to which they will be tested are not those that they are now being taught, i.e. Common Core. How ridiculous is that? Why should we spend money and time on this exercise? Huppenthal has declared that the (stupid and simplistic) school letter grades will not be issued on the basis of this year’s tests for precisely the reason I state above. Why should our kids bother with this if it doesn’t accurately tell us anything? The short answer is that No Child Left Behind requires it, regardless of the fact that it is a waste of precious student time.
If my child were not in tenth grade and in the last class of AIMS guinea pigs (who will be replaced by next year’s class of PARCC guinea pigs) required to pass AIMS in order to graduate, you can bet that I would hold him out of AIMS testing to protest the outsized influence of high-stakes standardized testing and the hijacking of our kids’ education by billionaire “philanthropists” and education profiteers.
We need to vote in David Garcia for supt. of public instruction and like-minded legislators, but that is not enough. Parents need to throw a wrench in the machine. OPT OUT OF TESTING! Go to unitedoptout.com to learn how to do something about this now. And when you write the letter to your principal to explain why your child will not be taking the AIMS test, think of this message and hope that when your kids are in high school, they will not have endured years of mind numbing standardized tests like mine have.
The United Opt Out site I posted above was hacked yesterday. Access the organization here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/unitedopto…
Tests are a part of life. Those who criticize schools for over-testing may forget that when they were students that had weekly quizzes and chapter tests. They had essays that were re-written multiple times to get better grades. Tests have always been part of the education landscape. What has changed is that teachers are now expected to use the test results to focus their work on helping kids in a small group or 1:1 level. It is no longer good enough to just give test, enter the results into the grade book, and move on. I don’t see more tests, but I do see more expected of teachers in using the test results.
David, I think you would best serve our community and your readership by digging below the recent TUSD hype. You did so in the piece you wrote on the H.T. Sanchez procurement debacle that resulted in nearly a $100,000 to one of his friends. Your reporting was well researched and inspired many of us to keep more than one eye on TUSD dealings.
I often say that the really good things that are going on in TUSD are not systemic- it is individual teachers and individual instructional leaders who, because of their own skills and drive, push forward and make sure that their students are receiving an optimum education in their classroom or school. What TUSD lacks is a systemic approach in doing much of anything. Rose Elementary, despite the criticism thrown its way in this blog- has had an instructional leader who has transformed a southwest school from one that was not performing well to one that is. Yes, there is emphasis on testing at Rose, but there is much more emphasis on learning, as well as in how students treat one another. (Prior to Trejo, there was no emphasis on academic performance and no one paid attention!) The approach at Rose has been systemic. The District has failed to do this at a District wide level, so it is the principal and teachers at Rose who should be applauded; not the District. (My single criticism of Rose is that Spanish is not as respected as English. In our world and given our geography- that is just not acceptable!)
Another example of hype is the recent proclamation that TUSD is immigrant friendly. What in the world does this mean in TUSD- where English Language Learners are segregated for four hours each and every school day? Educational experts know that this type of segregation does more harm than good. These young people score the lowest of all students; have the highest drop-out rate and their treatment by educators for speaking their native language remains negative. If TUSD wants to put any teeth into their shallow proclamation, have them sue the State for imposing a law which forces ethnic segregation. TUSD should stop with slogans and political platitudes. If TUSD would begin implementing its desegregation order, much of what supports students who are new arrivals to our city/state/country would systemically take place. Instead, Sanchez seems hell-bend on opposing chapter and verse of the court order. (Last Monday he said that he has been accused of being confrontational about the desegregation order….but that he argues with his wife and that- sometimes confrontation is good. This is not a very good analogy since I am sure he is not challenging his significant other at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, after having the Arizona District Court reject his objection and remind him that the District is not the defendant. One has to wonder if the Board understands that his objections and court appeals are really theirs. Avoiding a teacher reduction in force is great IF it will not result in short-changing kids. If a teacher cannot be placed in an area in which they are certified they may be assigned to an area in which they are not certified and/or be assigned as a long-term substitute. None of these scenarios are good for kids; you know, the reason that TUSD exists.
Superficial TUSD hype is all most of us are seeing from TUSD. Your “shorts” gimmick just won’t work with TUSD. Right now most of us involved with TUSD just feel like we are taking it in the shorts.