Engage in educator effectiveness conversation, Friday night on RMPBS

Posted on September 15, 2011 by ceawhatworks

We encourage CEA members to tune into a Rocky Mountain PBS program on Friday about educator effectiveness.

It’s “Colorado State of Mind” this Friday night, September 16, from 7:30-8:00 p.m. The regular 30-minute on-air program will be followed by a panel discussion that will feature Michelle Conroy, a teacher in Craig and Moffat County EA member, and Henry Roman, a Denver teacher and Denver CTA president. There will also be a live online chat from 7:30-9:00 p.m., moderated by Alan Gottlieb, publisher of EdNews Colorado, an online education news source.

CEA is a co-sponsor of this program. Rocky Mountain PBS is partnering with PEBC (Public Education & Business Coalition) and EdNews Colorado on this program with the goal of exploring the challenges of measuring educator effectiveness.

You can post questions and comments now and throughout the Friday night live program — and we hope you will.

Filed under: Evaluation, Funding, News, Public Education, Quality Teachers, SB 191, Teaching and learning conditions, Teaching Profession | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Educators: Talk to Vice-president Biden Monday at 5:00 p.m.

Posted on September 11, 2011 by ceawhatworks

CEA encourages Association members to join Vice-president Joe Biden in a conference call on Monday, September 12, at 5:00 p.m. (Colorado time).

Vice-president Biden wants to hear from educators about jobs and the importance of maintaining teacher and support professional jobs in our public schools. On the call, the Vice-president will discuss the Obama Administration’s commitment to preventing educator layoffs through the American Jobs Act that the President introduced last week in Congress.

Date of Call: Monday, September 12, 2011
Start Time: 5:00 p.m. in Colorado

Please plan to dial in 5-7 minutes early
Call Number: (800) 260-0719
Participant Access Code: 216646

NOTE: This call is closed to the media.

About the American Jobs Act & Teachers: As many as 280,000 education jobs are on the chopping block in the upcoming school year due to continued state budget constraints. These cuts could have a significant impact on children’s education, through the reduction of school days, increased class size, and the elimination of key classes and services.

The President’s plan will support state and local efforts to retain, rehire, and hire early childhood, elementary, and secondary educators, including teachers, guidance counselors, classroom assistants, after-school personnel, tutors, and literacy and math coaches.  These efforts will help ensure that schools are able to keep teachers in the classroom, preserve or extend the regular school day and school year, and support important after-school activities.

To watch the President’s speech or to find out more:

White House-American Jobs Act

NEA Education Votes site

Filed under: Funding, Jobs and the economy, News, Public Education, Quality Teachers, Teaching and learning conditions, Teaching Profession | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

School Nurse Day: Wednesday, May 11

Posted on May 10, 2011 by ceawhatworks

This week we celebrate school nurses, women and men who teach students, educators, and families how to promote student health, safety, and life-long wellness. National School Nurse Day is May 11, the Wednesday of National School Nurses Week.

The celebration began in 1972 and today it honors more than 60,000 school nurses in the U.S., their profession, and the specialty of school nursing. It coincides with the anniversary of the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of nursing.

For some school children, the school nurse is the only health care professional they ever see. And because of school funding cuts, the school nurse is often one of the first positions cut, forcing school nurses to work in and travel among two, three, four, five schools, seeing hundreds of students every week.

Take time on Wednesday to thank a school nurse, not just for a bandaid or a cool cloth on the forehead, but for keeping our students healthy, in school, and ready to learn.

School Nurses, we salute you.

NEA on School Nurse Day

National Association of School Nurses and its School Nurses’ Week radio campaign

Filed under: News, Parental Involvement, Public Education, Teaching and learning conditions | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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!

Filed under: Evaluation, Funding, SB 191 | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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.

Filed under: Evaluation, News | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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.

Filed under: Evaluation, Funding, News, Quality Teachers | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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.

Filed under: Evaluation, Funding, News, Quality Teachers | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

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!

Filed under: Funding | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Funding Student Achievement

Posted on February 17, 2010 by ceawhatworks

Students across Colorado deserve a well-rounded, quality school experience that helps them become critical thinkers and creative problem solvers, so they can be successful in the 21st Century.

In order for this to happen for every student, we must make sure all of our schools have the proper resources. Adequately funding our schools supports each student on their pathway to achievement.

However, in per pupil funding, Colorado is not competitive with other states. In fact, we rank 42nd and continue to fund our schools at 1989 levels. How can we compete in the 21st Century if we are funding schools at 20th Century levels? It is time to take a hard look at this critical issue and in particular at our state tax policy.

Even in this current economic downturn we must deal with the funding issues we face. We must invest in a quality public education, now and tomorrow, for every student in Colorado.

To see how some districts are dealing with reduced funding at the state and local level, read “Colorado schools spread word on cuts” from the Denver Post.

Filed under: Funding | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

A Quality Teacher in Every Classroom

Posted on February 10, 2010 by ceawhatworks

The need for a quality teacher in every Colorado classroom is important to all of us. It has been a central part of the discussion around Race to the Top and school funding. But when we use the term quality teacher, what exactly do we mean?

Quality teachers…

  • Design and facilitate instruction that takes into consideration each student’s learning style, interest and skill level;
  • Collaborate with colleagues, parents and community members to promote the best education for students;
  • Advocate for their students and the resources they need to learn and succeed;
  • Demonstrate in-depth subject knowledge and a high level of professionalism;
  • Continually learn and improve their content knowledge and skills;
  • Use multiple methods to assess student progress in the short and long-term; and
  • Respect students’ diverse backgrounds and work to help every student be a lifelong learner.

Many thousands of teachers in Colorado are just these kinds of educators. The challenge for Colorado and our public education system is to recruit and retain the new teachers we need, as the number of teachers retiring increases. We must create a work environment that promotes teacher growth and collaboration; a pay structure that acknowledges professionalism and expertise; and a fair evaluation system that encourages and supports quality instruction and teacher effectiveness.

Filed under: Quality Teachers | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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