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Third Saturday Seminar 2010-2011
Return of the Elders, Unleash your Wisdom
Session 1

September 18th, 2010 9:30 am til 12:00 noon
Room B-102, Lone Star College – Montgomery
3200 College Park Drive – Conroe, TX – 77384 – 936.273.7000

The Coming Year in Texas Education

Gayle Fallon, President, Houston Federation of Teachers. HFT (http://tx.aft.org/) is larger than all the other educational organizations in Houston combined. Gayle is frequently sought out by the media, for statements on any number educational and school district issues. You may not always agree with what she says but you will clearly understand what she is saying and why.

Rob Eissler was elected to represent District 15 as State Representative in November of 2002. He has served serve as Chairman of the Public Education Committee in his third and fourth terms. Representative Eissler was recently named one of Texas Monthly´s “Top 10 Legislators” of 2009. (http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/dist15/bio/eissler.htm) To see his short summary and the state of education in Texas. http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/dist15/newltr/Current-State-of-Affairs-in-Texas-Public-Schools.pdf

Education, everybody can tell you what’s wrong with it, yet nothing we try seems to produce consistent improvement.  Bush had his “No Child Left Behind” and Obama is introducing his “Race to the Top”.  There seem to be numerous anecdotal success stories, for some special programs and charters and even boarding schools, but when compared to other countries, especially in math and science we don’t compare as well as we should.

Is there a one-size-fits-all education? I don’t think so.  But how do we prepare our students, from varying backgrounds and differing abilities to reach their maximum potential in life, and become the foundation for a future America?  More to the point,  will our labor and management be able to rebuilt our economy and society to sustain them and those of us who now collect Social Security.  It will be no mean accomplishment to build a country that has such a tremendously wide range of new and developing technological and analytical competence.

“A truly free market requires workers that are as enfranchised as the capitalists. To be enfranchised, the worker must be as knowledgeable, free and healthy as the “elite”. He must have a strong self-awareness and appreciation of his value as a human being. He must exercise his powers of discretion in what work he chooses to perform, who he chooses to perform it for, and who he votes for to represent him at the various levels of government. In matters of philosophy and belief, he must know how to analyze and discern truth, good and evil, where it exists. He must choose his mentors and teachers and those he allows to influence him wisely. “Curt Gibby, Economics 000, Rev7”

Come, join the discussion! Let’s see if there is hope!

The Coming Year in Texas Education.

We will devote almost two hours to the main presentation (I will hold Current events to 30 minutes. Please help me.), it would be nice to say we will come close to covering the subject and producing lots of useful ideas.  But we won’t come close to that in two hours.  We are very very fortunate to have Rob Eissler and Gayle Fallon, two individuals very deeply involved in education in the state of Texas to inform and lead our discussion.  Our discussion and your questions and comments should enable you understand better what the situation is and what is happening and empower you to form your own opinions and perhaps engage. 

The strategy for the session is to start off by showing you two provocative videos (30 minutes) about some ideas to “fix education” Teachers in the District of Columbia are being reevaluated. (10 min)and Educators Push Back Against Obama’s “Business Model” (22 min) (See links to videos and transcripts following.) and I fully expect that there will be no problem getting the dialog started and for Gayle and Rob to respond as they see fit.  Everybody, please preview these two  videos.  I really hope that some or all of the following “talking points” get addressed, but, the main objective is to give the class an appreciation for What is on the Texas education agenda for the coming year,  and,  Is there hope to improve the graduation rate for all ethnicities and that graduates will be ready to enter college or start technical careers.

Then, If we can work them in, during the discussion  I would hope to see the following issues addressed.

What’s going on with the federal money controversy?

Educational Issues in the next legislative session

Graduation rate in The Greater Houston/Conroe School Districts (Is there a metric for success in life?)

The Future Role of the SBOE in dictating details of the curriculum.  (Will this actually prohibit including teaching and analyzing other viewpoints of history and its applicability to the current world situation.)

Race to the Top!  Is this the bait to further diminish the state sovereignty

The videos – and transcripts from PBS and DemocracyNow.org

Teachers in the District of Columbia are being reevaluated. Special correspondent John Merrow looks at a new test for teachers in the Washington, D.C. school district as part of his ongoing reporting on education. 

In most school districts around the country, teachers have what’s called “tenure” – a level of job security based on how long they’ve been teaching. But Michelle Rhee, Washington, D.C.’s controversial schools chancellor, changed all that when she introduced a new way of evaluating teachers based on classroom observations and student test scores.

When Michelle Rhee began her job as D.C. schools chancellor in 2007, just 12 percent of eighth graders in the district were proficient in reading, and only 8 percent in math. Rhee’s aggressive changes to the status quo got her national media attention as well as sharp criticism from many Washington, D.C. residents and teachers’ unions.

That upward trend may not be enough for Rhee to keep her job, though. D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, who hired Rhee, is up for re-election in November and faces a fierce battle against a competitor who may choose to replace Rhee if he wins.

In Washington, D.C., Public School Teachers Put to New Test | PBS NewsHour | Aug. 31, 2010 | PBS TSS Education
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/july-dec10/dcschool_08-31.html (10 min)

As I write this, there is an primary election taking place in Washington, DC.  Fenty has a very strong challenge from his Democratic Opponent, City Council Chair Vincent Grey, trailing him by 7 points in a recent poll.  This could have an effect on the future of the reforms which Rhee has instituted with the support of Fenty

.

Educators Push Back Against Obama’s “Business Model” for School Reforms
Education

It’s back-to-school season. As millions of children around the country begin a new school year, the Obama administration is aggressively moving forward on a number of education initiatives, from expanding charter schools to implementing new national academic standards. We talk to Karen Lewis, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, and Lois Weiner, a professor of education at New Jersey City University. [includes rush transcript]
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/3/educators_push_back_against_obamas_business (20 min)

Race to the Top
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Race to the Top, abbreviated R2T, RTTT or RTT, is a $4.35 billion United States Department of Education program designed to spur reforms in state and local district K-12 education. It is funded by the ED Recovery Act as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and was announced by President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on July 24, 2009.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_Top

Here is the link to the complete ALL Fall Catalog for LSC – Montgomery:

http://www.lonestar.edu/departments/ce/FALL_2010__SCHEDULE.pdf

Registration Information is at http://www.lonestar.edu/14613.htm

Visit LoneStar.edu/ALL-Montgomery or call 936.273.7446

Next Time! October 16, 2010 We will be moved to A-102 for this meeting.

It’s time for the Return of the ELDER!  Previous successful societies relied on the councils of their ELDERS to offer WISDOM in times of confusion.  Folks, we can’t quit yet.  Come to the Third Saturday Seminar in October, learn how to UNLEASH YOUR WISDOM, at least discover other ways to look at things.

Curt Gibby
Director, Third Saturday Seminar
(cell)
fax 281-288-8230
gcgconsult (at) n-star.com

Fenty’s Loss in D.C.: A Blow to Rhee’s Education Reform?

By ANDREW J. ROTHERHAM Andrew J. Rotherham – Wed Sep 15, 12:50 pm ET

When Washington voters declined to give Mayor Adrian Fenty a chance at a second term in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, it rattled the education-reform world. Four years ago, Fenty carried every precinct in the city and was talked about alongside rising Democratic stars like Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, N.J., and a little-known Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama. Now Fenty’s loss to city council chairman Vincent Gray leaves in doubt not only the status of Washington’s revolutionary school chancellor, Michelle Rhee, but also the national momentum for her brand of ambitious – and aggressive – education reform.

Like a handful of other big-city mayors, Fenty was given almost exclusive control of Washington’s schools in an effort to streamline accountability and minimize politics. His first act was to install Rhee as chancellor in 2007. Prior to her arrival in D.C., she was well known as a fearless reformer. She had launched the influential New Teacher Project in New York City, where she was also instrumental in overhauling the teachers’ contract, earning her the enmity of union leaders.

When Rhee barreled into Washington, just 12% of the city’s eighth-graders were proficient in reading, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. If ever there were a school district in need of dramatic change, this was it. Fenty was supportive while Rhee closed schools, reorganized the central office, fired teachers and administrators for poor performance, and let others go for budget reasons or for failing to meet various standards. Even in the midst of the primary campaign this year, Fenty sanctioned the firing of several hundred teachers. That’s unheard of in most cities – even with no election on the horizon.  

It’s worth noting, however, that although pundits frequently described the mayoral primary as a referendum on Rhee – whose high-profile efforts to clean up the school district included her much criticized decision to pose, broom in hand, for a cover of TIME in 2008 – she was not the only factor in the Sept. 14 poll results. Fenty’s loss turned on a number of issues, including his managerial style; the Washington City Paper had endorsed him, begrudgingly, as “the jerk the city needs.” (See TIME’s 2008 cover story on Michelle Rhee.)

Regardless, the D.C. election will affect education reform. With Fenty soon to be out of a job, it is widely assumed that Rhee will leave her post, voluntarily or involuntarily. She campaigned against Gray, and on style and substance, the two seem far apart. If Gray can persuade her to stay, it would be an impressive act of leadership on both sides, but insiders see little chance.

So what would a Rhee exit mean?

Most immediately, instability for Washington’s students and teachers just as the city was finally experiencing some consistency in its overall strategic direction. Rhee is the seventh superintendent in a decade. She has managed, during her short tenure, to institute a variety of management improvements, new accountability for school leadership, a landmark teacher-evaluation program and one of the most ambitious teacher pay-for-performance plans in the nation. Student outcomes are improving, but the uncertainty caused by the election will slow things down. And although a Gray victory does not mean a wholesale dismantling of Rhee’s reforms – as some are suggesting – changes are likely.

Her departure could spark a talent drain. Rhee, whom I have known for more than a decade, is a charismatic leader who has attracted people from across the country to work in the city’s central office and schools. They may not leave just because of her departure but because they deeply value her style of reform, which is urgent and results-focused. Unless Gray sends early and unequivocal signals about continuing ambitious reform in the city, look for some talent to head elsewhere. Among the employers already eyeing the D.C. talent pool: leading charter-school networks, states that are implementing winning Race to the Top plans and a handful of cities that are pursuing aggressive reform.

Outside of Washington, if you listen closely, you’ll hear the whispering of teachers’ union leaders to Democratic officeholders, warning them that they could share Fenty’s fate if they get too far out of line. Or, as New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein put it to me: “The vote on Fenty will be opportunistically misused by the opponents of real school reform.”

Fenty’s loss will reinforce the idea that dramatic change and political survival are mutually exclusive, says Justin Cohen, who leads the school-turnaround work for nonprofit Mass Insight (and previously worked for Rhee in Washington). Rhee’s “entire ethos is based upon ‘results for children before the interests of adults,’ ” he says. The irony, Cohen notes, is that “the national conversation about her has been the converse.”

But perhaps the biggest repercussion of the D.C. election is that it will reinforce the idea that in America’s notoriously change-averse schools, you can just hunker down and wait out the reformers. That this, too, will pass.

Andrew J. Rotherham, who writes the blog Eduwonk, is a co-founder and partner at Bellwether Education, a nonprofit working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students.