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
http://www.edweek.org/go/guidelines http://www.EDWEEK.ORG http://www.edweek.org/go/Allen http://www.edweek.org/go/commentary
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - February 15, 2017
