Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

Why I’m a NO on Senate Bill 191, regarding teachers’ jobs

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
Senate Bill 191 is a bill that would tie teachers’ jobs to the performance of their students on standardized test.  I do not support the bill and I voted against it yesterday in Appropriations Committee tonight.  I will be voting against it again tonight on second reading in the House.  Teachers have an enormous impact on our children’s lives; and I support evaluating our teachers.  But, this bill is a step in the wrong direction.  For starters, the governor’s Council for Educator Effectiveness was just formed in January to examine these issues and it should be given the opportunity to find consensus on these questions with all stakeholders at the table.  But, when teachers jobs are tied to standardized tests it creates a vast array of problems for Colorado’s educational system.  The bill requires that the State Board of Education adopt guidelines for a system to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers and principals and requires that all school districts must adjust their local performance evaluation systems to meet the adopted guidelines.  The bill also requires that at least 50% of the teacher and principal evaluations come from the growth of the students on standardized tests. For starters, we would have to implement new standardized tests in Colorado that would cost millions to create.  CSAPS today cost us $21 million annually for just 4 subjects and for just 6 different grades.  I do not believe that you can assess the complete student curriculum on multiple-choice standardized tests.  Curriculum like creative writing, art, music, social studies, physical education, and history currently are not tested on the CSAPs.  Creating all of these new tests for every grade level will cost millions at a year when education funding has been cut more than $300 million.  But, more importantly, values like social skills, maturity growth, and learning how to learn (and not just facts) are not tested on standardized tests.

One of my concerns about Senate Bill 191 is that it eliminates due process for teachers.  The current due process system has worked sufficiently.  But, if we’re going to make a change then it should be done with all parties at the table talking collaboratively.  It does not always make practicable sense measuring teachers by growth on standardized tests.  Children have vastly different levels of support networks at home.  Some students have parents at home who demand that they complete their homework nightly; other students have less than perfect family networks.  The success of these students on standardized tests are often vastly different from one another.  Yet, under SB 191, teachers could place their job on the line when they teach higher risk students.  Teachers will feel induced to move to schools where students perform better on their tests for better job security.  This will discourage teachers from teaching at some of higher risk schools.  Similarly, there are several other variables that could affect the success of students on standardized test, like whether students take several sick days during the year.  However, the teacher will be held responsible when those students do poorly on their tests and could lose their job.  Teachers will have to pray that they have a classroom of students who are healthier.  I also have concerns that if this bill passes, that students will have the power to fire their teachers because they are “too tough.”  Students will realize that when a teacher assigns too much homework or makes them work too hard that they can get the teacher fired by intentionally bombing their standardized tests; and students have no personal benefit or risk in doing well or poorly on the standardized test.

The vote on 191 will take place sometime tonight on second reading.  I will be a no vote, and will be presenting amendments to try to make some improvements to the bill.  But, with this bill being pushed through in the final two weeks of session, and without proper vetting and negotiations, I cannot vote for it tonight.

Posted in Education, Workers' Rights | 3 Comments »