SB 191 on Way to Governor

Posted on May 13, 2010 by ceawhatworks

The final days of the Colorado Legislature brought many changes to SB 191, the teacher evaluation and effectiveness bill. Dozens of amendments were offered on the floor of the House Tuesday evening as the bill was debated for over four hours.

On Wednesday the bill had its final vote in the House and then the House version was accepted by the Senate. The Legislature adjourned Wednesday night and the bill will next go the Governor who is expected to sign it.

So many changes were made to the bill in the last week that CEA is still working on a summary of what the bill actually does. Meanwhile here’s what CEA President Beverly Ingle had to say about the passage of the bill.

“This bill has been much improved since it was introduced last month. Over 200 amendments were offered as the bill worked its way through the process. We are pleased with a number of the amendments that were added to the bill.

“Initially, the bill took a very complex set of topics and dealt with them in a broad and overarching manner which raised many concerns. Our 40,000 members were appalled by this attack on their profession and by the negative effects it would have on both teaching and learning.

“Our members sprang into action and made thousands of contacts with their legislators. They told heart-felt stories about their students and their classrooms. Because of their work calling attention to the problems in the bill, many amendments were offered and accepted. We were able to get a number of checks and balances into the bill that will make it more palatable for our members.

“CEA was successful in extending the timelines for the development and implementation of a new but unfunded statewide system. We also appreciate that much of the detail work in the law has been assigned to the Governor’s Council for Educator Effectiveness. From the beginning we have said that the Council should be allowed to do its work and report to the Legislature.

“The work of the Council will be very important. CEA will offer its assistance to the Council and help it successfully complete its many charges. And we will also examine the bill and the various education processes it impacts. We will do everything we can to make this work for our teachers and our students.”

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House Education Committee Debates SB 191 Today

Posted on May 6, 2010 by ceawhatworks

The House Education Committee is scheduled to take up SB 191 this afternoon in the Old Supreme Court Chambers. CEA continues its opposition to the bill.

In a release sent to the media this morning, CEA President Beverly Ingle says, “We are working with legislators to make this bill more about teacher effectiveness and student achievement and less about punishing teachers and undermining the profession.”

“[CEA] wants a good quality evaluation system designed to help every teacher become a better teacher. We want a quality teacher in every classroom. We want to close the achievement gap and help all students succeed. Senate Bill 191 does not help,” she said.

Ingle continues, saying that CEA knows what works: time to teach and collaborate, parent involvement and support, meaningful mentoring of new teachers, high quality professional development, small classes, and adequate resources.

“These are the quality factors that make a difference. But these factors are not addressed in SB 191…because SB 191 is not about good teaching and learning.”

To listen in on today’s proceedings in the House Education Committee, click on “Old Supreme Court Chambers” in the lower-left on this page.

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Teacher Appreciation Week

Posted on May 5, 2010 by ceawhatworks

This week, communities and classrooms across the country are celebrating teachers and the work that they do as part of Teacher Appreciation Week. It’s the perfect time to take a moment to show your appreciation to teachers for all the effort they put in each day.

The National Education Association describes this week as “honoring teachers and recognizing the lasting contributions they make to our lives.” Since its founding in 1985 by the Parent Teacher Association, Teacher Appreciation Week has been celebrated annually.

How did you and/or your child celebrate National Teacher’s Appreciation Day on May 4th? Who was your favorite teacher and why? What is your favorite teacher memory? Share your thoughts and memories here.

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New Radio Ads: “Gifts, Grants and Donations” and “Responsible Reform”

Posted on April 30, 2010 by ceawhatworks

Senate Bill 191 is up for a final vote in the Senate today, and then will be heard in the House Education Committee next week. CEA members continue to tell legislators why SB 191 is an unworkable bill. Here are CEA’s two new radio ads now airing in the Denver metro area: “Gifts, Grants and Donations” and “Responsible Reform.”

Remember to contact your legislators and tell them to say no to SB 191!

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Diane Ravitch Visits Denver, Speaks Out Against SB 191

Posted on April 29, 2010 by ceawhatworks

Diana Ravitch, a well-known author and education expert (and former assistant secretary of education in the George W. Bush administration), is in Denver this week.

Ravitch is attending a number of events in Denver, including presenting at CU’s School of Education and the Education and the Public Interest Center in Boulder tonight. Tomorrow morning, Ravitch will attend a public event at Manual High School and will then participate in a debate with State Sen. Michael Johnston at a private lunch hosted by the Donnell-Kay Foundation (register for the Manual event here).

In yesterday’s Denver Post, Ravitch comments on SB 191, saying, “When you attach rewards and salaries to test scores, people will do anything to get the scores up, and it will not lead to better education.”

In a recent post on her own blog, Bridging Differences, Ravitch says, “…If any of our public officials is talking to testing experts, they are likely to discover that their plans to evaluate teachers by student test scores are technically invalid and will produce perverse (but predictable) effects that actually damage learning and are likely to undermine the teaching profession.”

In addition to being an author and speaker, Ravitch is a professor and historian of education at New York University.

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Why Senator Hudak Voted No on SB 191

Posted on April 28, 2010 by ceawhatworks

In her sole “no” vote on SB 191 in the Senate Education committee last week, Sen. Evie Hudak  (D-Westminster) voiced a number of concerns. Her first concern is the bill’s reliance on “gifts, grants and donations” to provide funding for the new system of standardized testing called for in the bill.

“Neither the state nor districts currently have assessments to determine students’ growth in every subject that is taught in every school – yet half of the new educator evaluation system is based on these assessments. The cost of creating such assessments has been estimated between $80 million and $140 million,” she writes on her blog.

Hudak  saw what CEA has seen for weeks: SB 191 is an unworkable reform measure that imposes unfunded mandates on our financially-strapped school districts. Our schools, and our students, can’t afford SB 191.

As Hudak so aptly writes, “The state has just reduced funding for schools by $260 million. With staff being laid off in schools, programs being eliminated, class sizes being increased, and schools being closed in some districts, I can’t see how spending money to write new tests is the wisest use of districts’ funds. The bill would also presumably require districts to pay for training for principals to perform the new evaluations, as well as a considerable amount of money for tracking all the new data. It’s an unfunded mandate and the wrong “solution” to the wrong “problem.”

Read Sen. Hudak’s blog post here, and remember to contact your state senators and representatives and tell them to say no on SB 191!

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Senate Bill 191 Up For Senate Debate

Posted on April 27, 2010 by ceawhatworks

Last Friday, Senate Bill 191 passed out of the Senate Education Committee by a vote of 7 to 1 (Sen. Evie Hudak, D- was the lone holdout). Yesterday the bill was approved by Senate Appropriations and will be debated on the Senate floor tomorrow.

If SB 191 passes the full Senate, it will be heard in the House Education Committee next Monday. It will go to House Appropriations and, finally, to the full House.

State Democrats have said they want to finish the session early, by next Friday, May 7. The legislature must complete its work no later than May 12. 

Time is running out, so please keep up the pressure on your legislators – both in the Senate and the House – and tell them to vote no on SB 191!

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CEA Teachers Rally at State Capitol to Tell Lawmakers, “We Know What Works”

Posted on April 23, 2010 by ceawhatworks

Below is a news release issued earlier today by CEA.

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This morning, approximately 500 members of the Colorado Education Association rallied on the steps of the State Capitol to demonstrate their support for revising the educator evaluation system in Colorado – and to bring attention to the failure of Senate Bill 191 to address the complexities and costs involved in revising the system.

“The current teacher and principal evaluation system is outdated and broken, and needs to be fixed. It will take a significant financial investment to do it right,” said CEA President Beverly Ingle. “SB 191 says that we should rely on ‘gifts, grants and donations’ to implement the changes it proposes. This is ridiculous. It amounts to unfunded mandates for our school districts, who are already financially strapped. They can’t afford to pay for a new evaluation system now,” she said.

A number of teachers spoke at the rally, including Jenny Campbell, a special education teacher in Cherry Creek School District. Campbell also testified in opposition to SB 191 in front of the Senate Education Committee yesterday.

Speaking of the current evaluation system, Campbell asked, “How can a principal spend four hours in a classroom of students with severe needs and expect to see the true growth they have made throughout the year? How is it adequate to judge and evaluate the effectiveness of a teacher based on just four hours spent in a classroom?”

Campbell explained that the progress and growth she sees in her students aren’t easily captured by standardized tests. (See Campbell’s full testimony.)

Other speakers at the rally echoed her sentiment, saying that SB 191 is the wrong approach.

Ingle emphasized that “CEA has been involved in every education reform measure in this state – CAP4K, longitudinal growth, accountability and accreditation. We know what works in education in Colorado – and SB 191 doesn’t.”

CEA leaders from across the state are in Denver to attend CEA’s annual meeting, which opened yesterday at the Marriott Denver Tech Center.

About CEA

The Colorado Education Association has 40,000 members, the vast majority of whom are K-12 public school teachers. Members also include educational support professionals such as school secretaries and classroom aides, retired teachers, community college professors, and college students who are planning to become teachers. CEA is affiliated with the 3.2 million members National Education Association.

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Testimony from SB 191 Senate Ed Committee Hearing

Posted on April 23, 2010 by ceawhatworks

Below is testimony against Senate Bill 191 given to the State Senate Education Committee. These testimonies highlight some of CEA’s concerns of the bill.

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NEA President to Testify Today on SB 191

Posted on April 22, 2010 by ceawhatworks

As the Senate Education Committee continues its hearings today on SB 191, National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel will be on hand to offer a national perspective on the type of actions similar to those being proposed in the Colorado bill. Testimony is set to start at 1 pm today with an hour set aside for opponents to SB 191. Live streaming audio of the proceedings is available; click on “Old Supreme Court Chambers” in the lower right corner to listen to the conversation. 

Also, check out CEA’s Twitter stream for coverage of yesterday’s testimony by President Beverly Ingle and Executive Director Tony Salazar.

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CEA President in Today’s Denver Post; SB 191 Testimony Begins

Posted on April 21, 2010 by ceawhatworks

Today, CEA President Beverly Ingle has a guest commentary in The Denver Post. Please take a minute to review it and share it with your friends and neighbors!

Also today, the Senate Education Committee begins two days of hearings on SB 191. A number of CEA members, staff and other experts will give testimony against the bill. We’re looking forward to this opportunity for legislators – and others – to hear directly from the people in the classroom who will be directly affected by this bill. If you wish to tune in to the proceedings, you can listen to live streaming coverage here and click on “Old Supreme Court Chambers” in the lower right corner.

Filed under: Evaluation, Funding, News, Quality Teachers, Race to the Top | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Systemic change is needed – but so are the means to do it right

Posted on April 20, 2010 by ceawhatworks

Teachers in Colorado are committed to excellence. We want to help our colleagues improve or help them out of the profession – and we want a quality teacher in every classroom. SB 191 doesn’t help us get there. As an article posted today on EdNews Colorado says, “I’m all for changing the whole system.  But not when we don’t have the means to do it right.” CEA agrees – and it’s why we’ve been working with the Governor and legislature for years on numerous education reform measures and we will continue to do so with the Governor’s Council for Educator Effectiveness as they work to develop a new educator evaluation system.

Find your Senator and Representative here and join us in telling them to vote no on SB 191.

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Better Educator Evaluation System is Costly, Complex Process

Posted on April 19, 2010 by ceawhatworks

“Why…don’t we have fair and balanced evaluation of teachers with simplified due process rules for the removal of those who are persistently ineffective?”

A great question. It was posed by Richard Rothstein, a Research Associate with the Economic Policy Institute, in his recent column titled “Unions not an important impediment to removing ineffective teachers.”

His answer: “Only because school district administrations do not propose such systems.” And why don’t they propose such systems?

“…Mostly because they are very, very expensive.” He goes on, saying “The reason we have such terrible “drive-by” teacher evaluation systems, with principals taking perfunctory peeks into classrooms, is that principals have no time (or training) to do it right.”

Teachers in Colorado are committed to excellence. We want to help our colleagues improve or help them out of the profession – and we want a quality teacher in every classroom. CEA has been working with the Governor and legislature for years on numerous education reform measures and we will continue to do so with the Governor’s Council for Educator Effectiveness as they work to develop a new educator evaluation system.

The legislature is currently considering SB 191, whose sponsors are promoting the bill as providing the answer to all our problems in public education. In truth, the bill does nothing more than add to the Council’s responsibilities, shorten its timeline, and bypass the Governor and the legislature. More importantly, it offers no provisions to pay for the new evaluation system that it sets forth and imposes unfunded mandates on our local schools

Rothstein ends his column by posing a question. “Are we prepared to provide the funds for all those additional teacher supervisors and mentor teachers an effective system would require?”

SB 191 and its supporters would do well to think about this question before passing along the costs of implementing a new evaluation system right now on financially-strapped schools.

Please join us in telling your Senator and Representative to vote no on SB 191.

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Not so fast! CEA opposing SB 191

Posted on April 15, 2010 by ceawhatworks

A critical component of student achievement is a quality teacher. Ensuring we have quality teachers in every classroom depends in part on an effective and fair evaluation system. But, Colorado’s current system doesn’t work. That’s why the Governor appointed a Council for Educator Effectiveness to assess and recommend a new evaluation system. Unfortunately, State Senator Michael Johnston has introduced a bill, SB 10-191, which circumvents the Council’s work. His bill defines an outcome before a real assessment is done. While it presents some interesting concepts, they need a lot more work by everyone involved before they should be set forth as unfunded mandates to school districts.

This bill is not good for Colorado, and for all of these reasons and more, CEA is opposing SB 191. Here is our new radio ad that talks about some of the issues.

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Join CEA’s Red Pen E-mail Campaign

Posted on April 6, 2010 by ceawhatworks

People across Colorado are joining CEA’s “Red Pen E-mail Campaign” to convince 100 legislators to reprioritize the state budget (called the “long bill”) and find the money in the budget to prevent cuts to K-12 education. Versions of the long bill are now being finalized by both the Senate and the House.

We anticipate the bill will be kept on a fast track and completed by the end of next week. Therefore, there is a need for urgent action.

Please join our Red Pen E-mail Campaign and send a message to your State Senator and Representative urging them to take their red pen to the state budget to support our schools. Use the basic message found on our Web site and add your personal story about what budget cuts will do to your school and district. Every e-mail helps!

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