Education Week - February 15, 2017 - 20
LETTERS to the EDITOR Updated Teaching Standards Create Better Training Experiences To the Editor: I was encouraged to read about the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards' modernization ("Revamped National Board Process Stirs Teachers' Interest," Jan. 11, 2017). I connected with the NBPTS in the early 1990s, when I was working in administration for the Broward County school district in Florida, with a focus on standards and teacher education. The national board was trying out its new standards in select districts around the country, and I agreed to supervise a test center for the board in Florida for two of the standards. As I recall, several dozen teachers participated, but very few achieved certification during that first try. Although participation was light in those early days, outcomes were powerful. The NBPTS train-the-trainer model created professional learning communities around validated teaching standards. The model promoted a kind of shared ingenuity for teachers in common license areas, reducing teacher isolation. I applaud the more efficient and less costly model that the board has recently approved. The NBPTS has created a splendid standards-based model of professional development. In my experience as an educator and administrator, and in my current work as a consultant, this model yields measurable effects on both participants and students that are far superior to many other kinds of "sit 'n' git" professional-development strategies I still see regularly in my school district visits. Thomas P. Johnson Education Consultant Harwich Port, Mass. The letter writer is a former associate superintendent for the Broward County, Fla., school district, where he oversaw human resources and training. School Diversity Unites Students To the Editor: John B. King Jr., the former U.S. secretary of education, made an excellent point ("A Dispatch From the Outgoing Education Secretary," Jan. 18, 2017) when he wrote: "Diversity helps more children succeed, broadens their perspectives, and prepares them for the global workforce. I am convinced the growing conflicts in this country over race, religion, and language would be profoundly reduced if our children learned and played alongside classmates who are different from themselves and if they encountered diverse teachers and leaders in their schools." That is a very strong argument against the view pushed by President Donald Trump and the new secretary of education, Betsy DeVos (who never attended, sent her kids to, taught in, or administered a public school), that public funds should be diverted through vouchers to private schools, which tend to fragment students and faculty along religious, ethnic, and other lines. Also excellent in the same issue is the Commentary by Jeffrey R. Henig ("Will Betsy DeVos Divide the School Choice Movement?") and Catherine Brown's and Jack Jennings' contributions to the Commentary "Policy Suggestions For the New Administration." Edd Doerr President Americans for Religious Liberty Silver Spring, Md. COMMENTARY POLICY Education Week takes no editorial positions, but publishes opinion essays and letters from outside contributors in its Commentary section. For information about submitting an essay or letter for review, visit www.edweek.org/go/guidelines. | READERS REACT ON EDWEEK.ORG | Charter Schools Must Be Held Accountable, Readers Argue Overregulation is strangling the charter sector and will hamstring education innovation, writes the Center for Education Reform's Jeanne Allen in a Feb. 8 Commentary. The new education secretary, Betsy DeVos, could reverse this trend, Allen suggests, "starting with gutting the regulatory requirements of the once-simple federal charter-grant program." In a slew of comments, readers disputed Allen's characterization of the charter sector and pushed back against her recommendations for rolling back regulation. Many bristled at the suggestion that charter schools shouldn't have to jump through the same hoops as traditional public schools, while others insisted regulation is necessary to safeguard the rights of special education students. To read the full Commentary and more reader responses, please visit: www.edweek.org/go/Allen Steve Braden for Education Week "If charters are so ridiculously regulated, why are so many of them failing due to incompetence, usually with large educational grants disappearing into the pockets of the executives running the charters? If one-size-fits-all laws and accountability systems and top-down compliance is not best practice for education, why should public schools have to deal with these exact same issues?" - APRILLYN "It is one thing for charter school operators to assert they ought to be free from union contracts or school district programs. It is another thing to assert that state and federal regulations and state and federal laws do not apply to charter schools. Any school that is considered a public school because it is funded by taxpayers must be required to follow all state and federal laws that apply to the treatment of students." - RICH "On paper, charters are all about innovative disruption. In reality, they are all about politicians farming out the process of educating students in impoverished districts because they have no clue how to fix any of the problems. The very regulation that you are complaining about in this article is what these districts struggle with on a daily basis. These regulations exist because we demand, as a society, that all citizens deserve the right to a free public education. Public schools can't cherry pick their students, or kick them out as soon as they become disruptive. Public schools have to provide services for students with special needs, even at great financial cost. This is a good thing." - BLOOLIGHT "Charter schools are so diverse that a conversation about 'charter schools' is impossible when the discussion is monolithic. A major mistake is to consider all charter schools as the same. Charter schools must provide for the same broad range of students in traditional public schools, including special education. ... Every charter school is an experiment and the results of the experiment are intended to be revealed every year. ... Charter schools were never intended to become corporations generating income from the public purse for stockholders, siphoning off public funds to private investors. Charter schools, like traditional public schools, must document achievement and seek improvement. In order to compare results, a certain amount of regulation and oversight is necessary. ... Charters are public schools and must be accountable, but accountable within the context of their experiments." - TAKESTATISTICS "What I see in this author's text is no different from what I hear from almost all of the other unvarnished proponents of charter schools: a religious zeal that refuses to take the real data into account about their passionate pursuit of experimenting on other people's children-particularly poor children and children of color." - EDUMICH "The same 'bureaucratic forces' that 'strangle the charter sector's innovation,' are doing the same to public education, in a far larger scale. One-size-fitsall laws and accountability systems have impacted public schools a lot more and for a lot longer than they have affected charter schools, but instead of condemning them as detrimental to education in general, charters advocates demand their own set of regulations, even when most charters have ceased to be the envisioned centers of creativity and innovation. ... Why should charter schools be exempt of the same regulations that rule public schools, when they are publicly funded? Why do charter proponents hypocritically maintain that overregulation and accountability are anathema to the ideals of charters, but somehow not just necessary, but desirable, for public schools?" - MCRUIZ "Allowing charters to not be 'saddled' with accountability is an awful idea. Why would should we continue to let the cost, time loss, and parent frustration associated with accountability mandates kill public schools while allowing charters to do whatever they find best for the students, usually with less qualified teachers?" - WRITINGTEACHER55 -COMPILED BY MARY HENDRIE 20 | EDUCATION WEEK | February 15, 2017 | www.edweek.org/go/commentary
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