tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56920979014773907482024-03-08T03:15:16.909-06:00Notes from MCThis blog is posted by Mary Cathryn Ricker, President of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, Local 28, which serves to offer notes and thoughts of interest to the members and friends of SPFT about unions, great public schools and public school teachers. Issues of greater good for all of our students, reflections on teacher leadership, being a teacher, union leader, and community activist will also be included.Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.comBlogger120125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-81078342527014737232012-12-21T19:00:00.001-06:002013-01-30T19:25:58.328-06:00Licensed to TeachSo I guess the NRA says the answer to stop school shootings is more guns, joining the smattering of elected officials who recently have promoted the idea of arming teachers and principals. This approach is wrong.<br />
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If a place like Ft. Hood, TX which has some of our planet's most deadly weapons carried by some of our planet's most deadly professional soldiers, can be reduced to carnage by a single armed assassin, then what makes The NRA think that arming a nation of just-right-book loving, denim jumper wearing, wooden apple bead necklace creating, white board marker toting school teachers (and the rest of us) will be effective?<br />
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You want to arm me? Good. Then arm me with a school psychologist at my school who has time to do more than test and sit in meetings about testing. <br />
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Arm me with enough counselors so we can build skills to prevent violence, have meaningful discussions with students about their future and not merely frantically adjust student schedules like a Jenga game. <br />
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Arm me with social workers who can thoughtfully attend to a student's and her family's needs so I. Can. Teach.<br />
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Arm me with enough school nurses so that they are accessible to every child and can work as a team with me rather than operate their offices as de facto urgent care centers.<br />
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Arm me with more days on the calendar for teaching and learning and fewer days for standardized testing.<br />
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Arm me with class sizes that allow my colleagues and me to know both our students and their families well.<br />
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Arm my colleagues and me with the time it takes to improve together and the time it takes to give great feedback to students about their work and progress.<br />
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Until you arm me to the hilt with what it will take to meet the needs of an increasingly vulnerable student population, I respectfully request you keep your opinions on schools and our safety to yourself NRA. Knock it off.<br />
Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com99tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-84995557365484787612012-12-20T21:13:00.001-06:002012-12-20T21:13:56.646-06:00Sad & angry, scared & gratefulOn Monday I sent the following note out. I am posting it here so more folks get a glimpse of the confidence and gratitude I have for the public school system my children attend and whose educators I have the privilege of representing, even as I am filled with a deep and pervasive sadness for Newtown, CT. -mc<br />
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Dear SPFT Community:<br />
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As an English/language arts teacher I pride myself on the command of language I’m supposed to have, and yet I am struggling to find the words to express how sad and angry and scared and grateful I am.<br />
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Sad because it is heartbreaking to think of the loss families, friends and an entire community are experiencing right now In Newtown, Connecticut and beyond.<br />
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Angry, because I am sick and tired of these stories. Angry that we do not find access to high quality mental health services compelling enough to prioritize in district, state, or federal budgets. Angry that this tragedy no doubt rubs raw the wounds still felt in sweet, struggling communities like Red Lake or ROCORI MN, that deserve better. Angry because we all deserve better than to have to question our safety, and the safety of our children, in our schools, in our movie theaters, in our malls, in our communities. Angry because it seems that every time an event like this happens we collectively seem to mourn well and act slowly.<br />
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Scared, because I realize that pretending my children, or any children, are safe from this is fiction. Acts of terrorism such as this—especially in what feels like their increasing frequency—demonstrate exactly what terrorism is supposed to: that safety is an illusion when anyone with a sick idea has access to the weapon best suited to carry out said sick idea. Scared for you because I know you do everything in your power to teach well despite all the normal distractions, let alone the unthinkable like this occurring. Acts like this demonstrate how acutely you truly are on the frontlines of our students’ futures. Your work to demonstrate your care for students, to keep them safe, to meet their needs continues to be the most powerful antidote to my fear and the fears any of our students or parents have, which is why I find myself grateful.<br />
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Grateful may not seem to fit as a reaction to terrorism, but I am grateful for you. By sheer coincidence, by participating in the time-honored tradition of delivering forgotten homework, I was walking through Highland Park Middle School about the same time the world was finding out about the act of terrorism in Newtown, yet I didn’t know it yet. I was struck at the time, even more so now, at the serene scene that I found in all the hallways I walked. Watching my son walk toward me, as the sun lit up the south-facing windows, his expression joyful, I felt purely like a satisfied parent at that moment, thrilled with all that his schools had given him, excited that he could tell me how he was spending his day, that his teacher said to say “hello” and that he was eager to get back to class. As I walked toward the door, and passed classrooms with feverish teaching and learning sounds coming from them, a teacher and assistant principal discovering a sticky situation involving glue and a drain, and students bustling with clear places to go, my pride in the work you do was fairly bursting. I knew at that moment that every corner of St. Paul’s schools was working toward that same atmosphere. You don’t know how grateful I am to all of you who meet the needs of all of our students with such joy, such passion, such dedication, such determination every minute, every hour, every day you can. I am deeply grateful. The fact that someone, somewhere took that serenity away from children and parents and that school community makes me physically sick even while it inspires my deep gratefulness for you. I am grateful that you took time this weekend to prepare to bring that safety back to our students and families. Thank you.<br />
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I used to teach under the illusion that while students were in my classroom they were safe. I would worry about them when they left because I didn’t know if they would be safe. Part of that was, perhaps, me just being a control freak, perhaps part of that was some sort of white privilege coming out, but I do know for certain that it was because of the genuine care I had for my students. I wanted to see them again. I couldn’t wait to see them again and pick up where we left off. My way of telling them that, especially at the end of class every Friday was to say “Good-bye, see you Monday. In the meantime take care of yourself and take care of each other.” And with that, I would usher them out, assuaged that I had sort of given them one more thing to do while hoping to get across that I cared about them.<br />
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I don’t believe that I will ever make sense of this act of terrorism. We may make meaning of it by advocating for efforts that improve the safety of our community for our students and ourselves. I am grateful that you do everything you can to take care of the students and families of St. Paul Public Schools, including mine. I am also grateful that you are part of a union community that, by the very definition of solidarity, takes care of each other.<br />
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Thank you and be well.<br />
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Mary CathrynMary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-91225896454055716242012-09-15T17:41:00.001-05:002012-09-15T17:41:08.024-05:00Optimism and TenacityThese are the comments I prepared, and more or less delivered, for my speech at the Chicago Teachers Union rally today.<br />
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Good afternoon!<br />
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Thank you very much to President Karen Lewis & the entire Chicago Teachers Union team for your generous invitation to speak today.<br />
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And thank you for your extraordinary leadership that brought us all here today. A strike is never an easy choice. In fact, we know it's a last resort when all else has failed. Your extraordinary sacrifices of time with your students, of time with your family and risking financial stability are not lost on us.<br />
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Like your president, I am also a National Board Certified teacher who sees teaching and union activism as complementary missions to directly improve people's lives. <br />
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I am here representing the educators in St. Paul, Minnesota a local union just up Interstate 94 that went on strike in 1946 because they wanted their classroom windows to shut, wanted to fix condemned school buildings, wanted enough text books for their students, wanted job security and wanted a more responsive administration than the mayoral controlled political-favors school system that had been deaf to what was needed for better schools. Does that sound familiar to you?<br />
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Those teachers won better schools for their students and so will you.<br />
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But I am not here just to reminisce about the past. I am here as a representative of the educators in St. Paul who stand with you today looking into a future of better schools with that same optimism and tenacity as you.<br />
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These same issues have been negotiated at our bargaining table. These same goals for students & their families are fought for everyday through our work in solidarity with our community as well as with you.<br />
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Like you, we bring up solutions to support families that include just housing policies because school shouldn't be the only roof our students can count on--especially if that roof is leaky, too. We work for just health care policies because our school nurses should not be doing triage Monday mornings & their offices shouldn't be the only urgent care families can afford. We advocate alongside our brothers & sisters in the labor movement for a living wage because every worker deserves that dignity.<br />
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We advocate for dependable class sizes, for every child to have music, art, world languages and more because it is vital part of instructing students to be more than test-takers, to making them the innovative, creative, rightful inheritors of the future of America's ingenuity and spirit they deserve to be.<br />
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Contrary to what noneducators say about us, we don't bring these things up because they keep us from teaching. What they don't understand is that we bring these things up because the violence these injustices do to our students and families keep us up at night.<br />
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Chicago teachers, support professionals, families you have our support because your goals for your students & families are our goals for our students and families. Your goals for our profession are our goals for our profession. You can count on us and we are proud to stand with you.Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-50198172991629368372012-09-11T12:15:00.000-05:002012-09-11T12:18:16.213-05:00The Chicago Strike and Earth without ArtOne of the many inspiring signs I saw on the first day of the CTU strike was "<i>Earth without art is just 'eh'</i>" and it sure is. <br />
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One of the most cogent points Chicago teachers are making is that their students deserve more creative subjects back in their school day like art, music & world languages. Chicago teachers are insisting that if a student day is going to be discussed that it makes no sense to myopically discuss the length of a student day and ignore the quality of that student's day. Merely lengthening the day puts students at risk for even more standardized test prep rather than the opportunity to experience, firsthand, what makes us a vibrant civilization rather than just a concrete collection of humans.<br />
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Exposure to and mastery of art, music or world languages, for example, does not just make students more appreciative of those things (but so what if it did?), it does not just help English teachers like me with additional fodder for metaphors (but so what if it did?); studying art or music or a language other than English puts context to history, offers valuable grounding in math concepts and more. <b>It is vital to instructing students to be more than test-takers; it makes them innovative, creative, rightful inheritors of the future of America's ingenuity and spirit.</b> <br />
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A world-class, well-rounded education should not be dependent on a child's zip code or the numbers on their parent's tax return. It should be accessible to every child. This is what fuels the sort of KittyHawk-like ambition that lands us on the moon--not a fixation on standardized test prep. Because before you can think through rocket science, you have to dream it and believe in rockets or there is nothing to think through.<br />
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It is one of the reasons in 2009 our teachers in St. Paul prioritized negotiating school-based control over the content of the additional length of any school day that may be voted on at a particular site. Our union understood that school sites may want some flexibility in the length of a teaching & learning day AND we committed to making sure the creative control of any negotiated time was determined by the school community because we know <b>the closer a decision gets made to students, the more relevant that decision is to those students.</b> <br />
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We've negotiated over a dozen of those agreements in the last three years. Have they been perfect? No, not yet. It has been a work in <b>progress</b>, with an emphasis on the progress part. Progress because we have a commitment to talk to each other at the site--as close to our students as possible--rather than have decisions made by someone who stopped by St. Paul for a cup of coffee and a rally. It is that commitment to talk to each other and make those decisions together that will improve our process. And that agreement came from our bargaining table.<br />
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I support the Chicago teachers at their bargaining table and on those strike lines that are bringing attention to the discussion we must have and decisions we must make about the school day our students deserve. Please join me.<br />
Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-48337184468126387192012-08-27T13:27:00.000-05:002012-08-27T13:27:26.643-05:00Sisu, of courseOn Friday we had a closing round-table panel discussion of the week's observations with Joanne Weiss, Secretary Arne Duncan's chief of staff; Richard Laine, Education Director for the National Governors Association; Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University professor who is a national expert on education with an incredible specialty in teacher preparation, and me.<br />
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I was asked to give "the teacher" perspective of what I had seen and heard and felt this week in Finland. With that aforementioned group. In five minutes.<br />
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Gulp.<br />
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As I tried to assemble my thoughts I found myself panicked on and off that so many of my observations needed to be left on the cutting room floor and so many of my thoughts for the implications of Finland's success for the future of education in the United States were going to have to be general rather than specific.<br />
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My comments went something like this:<br />
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First, a week of traveling with about 40 mostly previous complete strangers by busing, observing, walking, school-visiting, eating, fire drilling, language-struggling and a little shopping will compel you to get to know just about everyone. Anecdotally, I felt like I kept running across people who had taught. Sure enough, when I opened up my remarks wouldn't you know about 2/3s of the US delegation raised their hands when I asked who had ever had direct responsibilities for student learning as a classroom teacher at some point in their career.<br />
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Aha! This group of foundation heads, public policy officials, think tank-types had some prior knowledge they had also been using to filter this week. My thoughts were going to be based on my experience, but I hoped to tap their experiences in teaching, too.<br />
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I was taught only two Finnish words growing up: sauna, which I was also taught how to pronounce correctly, and sisu.<br />
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For those of you who don't know what sisu is, there is no actual direct translation. It means more than guts. It doesn't mean momentary courage, although it intones courage. It is maybe best described as having the strength to persevere, especially amidst pressure and adversity. <br />
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[For example, let's say a country got tremendous pressure from the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) to adopt market-based education reforms like all the other kids are doing and they resisted that pressure by choosing to stay the course of their own, successful researched-based education policies. That would be an example of sisu in my book. Get it? FYI: Wikipedia actually gives some great examples of journalists trying to convey sisu in a number of different, linked articles.]<br />
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This strength to persevere rather than change course was evident all week. The ability to patiently "work your plan" as the business self-help habits suggest you do while swimming with sharks guided by your true north, despite adversity surfaced again and again. One has to be intentional in order to persevere and that, too, was evident again and again all week.<br />
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Another thing you need to be clear about in order to persevere, and demonstrate your sisu, are values. The great local president of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, Ellen Bernstein, once pointed out to me that we all live in a world of constants and variables. I have been using it as my gut-check for issues ever since.<br />
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Constants are those things you value; those things you would not compromise on regardless of the offer. Variables end up being everything else--those things about which you are willing to negotiate, if you will.<br />
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My St. Paul example is Humboldt Secondary School. Now, Humboldt has been on just about every academic-probation-needs-improvement-persistently-low-achieving-school label imaginable in the last dozen or so years for its graduation rate. The adopted graduation rate measure that must be used for punishing schools is 4 years, which makes time the constant. Guess what gets to be the variable in that equation then? Graduation.<br />
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Luckily for the students at Humboldt, despite tremendous pressure and adversity, the teachers and administrators at Humboldt stick to graduation at their constant (and serendipitously like Finnish schools) consider time to be the variable. Because of their perseverance with students, a greater than usual percentage of whom qualify for special education and English language learner services, the teachers and administrators of Humboldt have a lot of success with students, who themselves persevere to graduate in 4, 5 or 6 years. Humboldt teachers and administrators have chosen the constant that matters for their students. The latest graduation rate is over 98% when you measure Humboldt's constant: graduation, rather than the school accountability constant: time.<br />
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Likewise, again and again this week, Finland seems to have chosen the right constant:<br />
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->Universal, high quality, affordable preschool rather than measuring readiness at a kindergarten entrance and trying to play catch-up.<br />
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->Universal, high quality, comprehensive, no short-cuts teacher preparation so that students are getting consistent and strong instruction from the beginning. My goal is that someday we will be able to look all American parents in the eye and say "this teacher is ready to teach your child. They are not just about ready, they are not ready in about a year, they are not ready dependent on the money we have for new teacher induction, but they are ready now." For Finland, that day has been happening since about 1974. Finland dumped disco and stuck with quality teacher preparation and I think we'd all agree that they are showing they're better off for it.<br />
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->Universal access to and attention from qualified guidance counselors from the beginning of elementary school through post-secondary learning so that students constantly have someone guiding their academic and personal decision-making toward a fulfilling career and life. Instead of treating guidance counseling like triage, they treat it like college and career planning so instead of band-aids they get a ready-for-the-world work force.<br />
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->Autonomy for students and teachers. Rather than pull decision-making away from the two groups most closely responsible for teaching and learning (those would be teachers and learners) Finland intentionally places developmentally appropriate responsibilities on students from day one, and likewise places responsibility on teachers to determine teaching methods best for students so they can deliver the national standards in ways they professionally believe best for their unique group of students individually (in their classes of 16-21) and collectively.<br />
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There is broad agreement among all citizens, their nine political parties, their municipal leaders and their teacher's union on these, and other, constants. My theory is that the broad and deep agreement on these shared values was critical in helping Finland weather the unpleasant decisions that came with the recent economic storm so solidly, immune to the turn-on-the-teacher ugly rancor that has mastasized in our economic/education debates.<br />
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We really can't adopt any of Finland's ideas if we merely look to overlay their successful policies onto our current reality. It is really going to take strength to persevere. As education leader and New York State United Teachers vice-president Maria Neira implored the group, "We don't have to limit our conversation to what is; we can think about what can be."<br />
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We actually must take Maria's advice and think (and act) on what can be. Don't assume requiring a masters degree means we would require the degrees offered now. We could completely recreate one for initial licensure (sound familiar, Bush Foundation?). Don't think that we can't cover all kids with health care, since some of us have already worked toward it (sound familiar Children's Defense Fund?). Don't assume no one has the stomach to offer universal, affordable, high quality preschool, which we all know already sounds familiar to an impressive collection of Minnesota's leaders and parents.<br />
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I speak from experience that I know people can push very hard, so don't lose enthusiasm for change just because the target for change isn't my union. Let's take another cue from Finland, where there were no targets, there were only destinations.<br />
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The other destination we can add to our Finnish wish list is Minnesota. If I heard a Finn say "we are about the size of your Minnesota" once, I bet I heard it a dozen times. If any state has the right skills and attitude it is a state that is no stranger to northern lights, ice fishing, hockey, engaged citizens committed to the common good, and historic high-quality schools and teachers. Couple that with our emerging consensus on access to good preschools, progressive state education leaders, a philanthropic community that wants to make a real difference with the students we serve, thoughtful local government officials, and a state full of rank and file educators clamoring to make a difference and our very own manifestation of sisu will be on the horizon before you have time to learn that sauna rhymes with town'a.<br />
Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-87159739466684340202012-08-23T16:58:00.001-05:002012-08-23T16:58:44.216-05:00Finnish Teacher Training: Masterful and CommandingToday I had the opportunity to immerse myself in Finland's teacher training programs (and even teach a little lesson myself!).<br />
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Our host, Olli Maatta Principal & University of Helsinki teacher preparation instructor, gave us a comprehensive background, arranged for us to view the lessons of the master teachers who serve as yearlong hosts to their student teachers, and also challenged us with some closing, provocative questions.<br />
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He began with, <b>"Teaching is not just about being a master of your content. It is being in touch with parents...putting into practice the knowledge you learned in your training."</b><br />
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Potential teachers are chosen after two or three years of undergraduate preparation through grade point average, test scores and a make-it-or-break-it interview. Ultimately it is the interview that is used to choose people to study to become teachers. The interview is conducted with content teachers, content-area professors, and an education professor. This group is looking for a virtual single-minded motivation to be with children as the priority.<br />
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Olli stressed that the role of teachers and teacher education are important to the now famous Finnish success that we are here to study. <br />
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Once chosen, these potential teachers are paired with master teachers at a teacher training school, like the secondary school I visited. To be a master teacher you must have at least two years of experience but Olli said the reality was that these teachers had much more than two years and a tremendous amount of value was placed in finding master teachers who had advanced degrees beyond the initial, mandatory Masters degree required to enter the profession.<br />
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The yearlong school-based placement (sound familiar CareerTeacher fans?!) included simulations on how to deal with a comprehensive list of issues, concerns and situations such as bullying, students who skip school and more to assure that practicing teachers get a wide range of experiences before earning the teaching credential.<br />
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In short, like everything else I have experienced this week in Finland, nothing is left to chance. It seems there is no such thing as "sink or swim" in Finnish education for the students or the teachers. Everything is intentional.<br />
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Olli explained that "Finnish teachers are called 'passionate pragmatists'" and I saw evidence of that in the 8th grade English lesson I observed. The teaching felt familiar. This master teacher was using the same techniques I have seen in countless St. Paul classrooms: an ambitious teaching pace, constant spiraling up of expectations building toward mastery in each new activity, checking for understanding, turn and talk, and discipline while conveying care for students and their learning.<br />
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It was good to sit in on a grade level with which I have so much experience to put the "Finnish students must just be better behaved and THAT'S why they do better on PISA" myth to rest. They are typical students who will draw on their Converse, pick at their nail polish, interrupt with video game stories and roll their eyes if you let them. This teacher clearly had taught them classroom rituals because redirecting them (constantly redirecting them--this is middle school)was swift and successful.<br />
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It was an absolute privilege to be able to share a small verb tense lesson alongside her at the end of my stay in her classroom. <br />
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When we got back together Olli shared the intentional work behind constructing this universal teacher preparation program with us. It was both affirming and challenging to be able to see behind the curtain so-to-speak of such a successful teacher training program. <br />
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It starts with the philosophy that <b>the teacher is the expert in planning, implementing, and evaluating teaching and learning.</b> With this as the beginning, everything is developed to support that. <br />
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Teachers must be taught to talk to each other constantly.<br />
Teachers must design the curriculum so they can define what students should know and do at their grade level like no one else.<br />
Teachers must be comfortable with autonomy so they feel responsible for executing this work.<br />
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Olli has hosted countless international delegations, all looking for the Finnish silver bullet. He works tirelessly to prevent Finland from being infected by GERM, the term coined by Pasi Sahlberg that stands for the Global Education Reform Movement. He has witnessed many people walking away disturbed that their education reform worldview was challenged rather than reinforced. As a man in a country with the PISA scores we envy and nothing to lose, he ended with three questions for our American delegation:<br />
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Can passion/engagement be emulated and scaled?<br />
What does your society celebrate?<br />
Are you able to see the harbor? which was his metaphor for "Are you actually sailing toward a destination or are you just wandering around lost and hoping you find a port?"<br />
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I have my gut reaction to those questions, but I feel very strongly that we must answer these questions thoughtfully and together in order to accomplish something. <br />
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Your thoughts?Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-62289047758338346292012-08-22T16:23:00.000-05:002012-08-22T16:25:06.138-05:00Angry Birds, Happy People"Finland is a place where you have angry birds and happy people..."<br />
-Pasi Sahlberg,Director General of the Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation at the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture.<br />
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I must give someone else in the delegation credit for noticing the deep consensus in Finland around happiness, keeping it simple and acting with intention and meaning. As I've been reflecting on her observation, I realize that much of what I admired about what I saw so far has fit into one of those categories.<br />
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Yesterday was our day to spend time in primary or comprehensive schools. I had the chance to spend the day in a neighborhood school that was also a magnet for students with diagnosed special needs before our afternoon with out-of-schooltime groups and a parent advocacy organization in the afternoon.<br />
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In the special needs/neighborhood school we visited, the headmaster summed up their consensus as to what made Finnish schools so good:<br />
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<i>->High educational standards for all teachers (no shortcuts for some)<br />
->Equal quality of schools<br />
->Systems to support students not to drop out<br />
->Municipalities and schools can consider local conditions when organizing education<br />
->No private schools so children can learn to be will different kinds of people<br />
->The idea of learning, not teaching. i.e. teachers have a great deal of autonomy and are expected to use several different methods of teaching and the focus is on giving students the tools they can use their whole life.</i></i><br />
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In another school, National Board of Professional Teaching Standards' President and CEO Ron Thorpe reported back that the principal answered "Because they have big freedom" when asked why people in Finland become teachers.<br />
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Ron said that the principal went on to describe the school by saying, <b>"This school is a rose garden and these children are our roses."</b><br />
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This last point, in particular, was reinforced in the afternoon by the parent advocate who said one of the biggest concerns parents have is over-testing. "Finland has been very wise in not adopting all this testing. I'm proud of my child's teacher--now that's test enough."<br />
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He explained that the most important job of teachers and parents is to work together and, despite describing some concerns that I have seen first-hand in middle schools I've taught in, too--parents not being as involved as in elementary school, wanting better attendance at parent/teacher conferences--he stated, [we have to] "do the sort of community-building where we have trust or we [Finland] won't get the kind of results we've been getting."<br />
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<b>Across all the representative groups: sports leagues, out-of-school-time organizations, parent and youth groups happiness and well-being was the common goal of all.</b><br />
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****<br />
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Today we spent the day in post-secondary institutions and talking to business leaders. One business leader in particular summed up his impression of Finnish educational success with:<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Equality is opportunity<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We trust our teachers<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Less is more.<br />
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He went on to tell a story of how the headmaster of his child's school had the chance to tell Howard Gardner, of Harvard University that "We want to make good citizens," when asked what the purpose of Finnish public education was.<br />
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He also took some pride in pointing out in clear, clipped English that Finland takes care of its children, so "we've had 'no child left behind' for 150 years." With comprehensive, universal access to high quality health care, preschool, and a lifetime of free education, indeed.<br />
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Pasi went on to joke that in other places they have happy birds and angry people. Will we be able to learn these Finnish lessons, or will we be the angry people in Pasi's joke?<br />
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</ul>Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-40961597343790339162012-08-21T16:08:00.001-05:002012-08-21T16:08:22.639-05:00I like to move it, muuvit.It's hard to imagine King Julian of "Madagascar" fame not loving Finland. From the plethora of bike-riders, including bike after bike lined up outside of schools and helmets lined up outside of classrooms, to the national movement (if you will) called "muuvit" which is Finland's attempt to get students around the world moving and fighting obesity. Check it out at www.muuvit.com. Learning to move - Moving to learn.<br />
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More on the learning part shortly. In the mean time, muuvit!Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-92043027165165218062012-08-20T16:16:00.002-05:002012-08-21T15:58:15.440-05:00Preschool, quotations and a questionToday we were immersed in a preschool program in the morning.<br />
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I had the opportunity to observe, and have lunch at, a Swedish language preschool that is attended by children whose home language is Swedish. Because of the number of Swedish-speaking Finns, preschools like this are not uncommon.<br />
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A number of things the Directors of the Finnish and Swedish preschools said as they were setting the stage for our visit stayed with me such as,<br />
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"I know we don't have tests like you do in the United States, but we follow our children's development and we support them."<br />
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"Playing is the most important thing in Finnish early education."<br />
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and<br />
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"In Finland, we believe that playing is the way to begin to learn all things."<br />
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I was brought back to my own experience picking a day care and a preschool for my children. As a frightened, perhaps over-protective parent, I wanted to find settings where children appeared happy, safe and had joyful, serendipitous opportunities. I found those places. In hindsight, I realize that even as a a two-licensed teacher family, we didn't look for hardcore academics for our children's early years. We looked for hardcore playing opportunities. I was sold on a place in St. Paul's Frogtown neighborhood that was near a park they visited every day, had a huge backyard with toys ordinary and imaginative, and where there always seemed to be someone singing or signing, or sometimes even caterwauling to no one in particular. I think that experience is what gave me an instant affinity to these Finnish preschool directors.<br />
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One big difference: we financed our son's preschool experience with a home equity loan. In Finland it is subsidized for all families so that it ranges from free to 264 Euros/month maximum.<br />
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Because it is affordable for everyone, it becomes a near universal experience for all children, which means "Ready for kindergarten" is not so much a gamble as it is a guarantee.<br />
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Some impressions of this experience I want to keep exploring include:<br />
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->Annual individualized education plans for home and school created by teachers and parents together and then evaluated by teachers and parents together.<br />
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->One teacher per seven children for 3-6 year olds, with a maximum classroom size of 21 students.<br />
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->The intentionality of the partnerships between teachers and parents, among preschool teachers, and the effort of preschool and primary school teachers to strengthen their partnership.<br />
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->The deep appreciation for the critical importance of child's play (as illustrated above).<br />
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->Access: Because it is near-universal (approximately 98% of Finnish children attend preschool), there is a common experience of high-quality preschool for every child before primary school.<br />
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->The intentionality of teaching children to be autonomous.<br />
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At the end of the day as well debriefed our experiences and wrapped up Pasi Sahlberg, the Director General of CIMO(Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation) at the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, matter-of-factly stated, "When we are asked where Finland got all its great ideas for education we have to say 'the United States.'"<br />
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If so, when did we stop practicing what we preach?Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-13326131944837824402012-08-19T15:23:00.000-05:002012-08-20T15:23:10.264-05:00Anything for you, FinlandIncluding dusting off my blog.
<b>When I first started to read about the system of public education in Finland I never would have dreamed I'd have the privilege to actually see it for myself and dig in with my own questions or comparisons.</b>
Based on the generosity of experts like Pasi Sahlberg, Tony Wagner and others I feel I have an apprentice-like knowledge of a world-class, high-performing system grounded in, as Pasi Sahlberg points out in his book <i>Finnish Lessons</i>, the <b>values of equality, efficiency, and solidarity.</b>
I think a majority of Americans could get behind those values in our public education system. Of course, this is where the devil meets the details though. We seem to get tripped up in rationing equality, efficiency, and solidarity as we debate the best course forward in American education.
Just when we think we are working to <b>improve student equality together</b>, whether it is equal access to strong teachers or high-performing schools, it is verboten to work just as diligently about equality issues for those same strong teachers as well.
<b>Efficiency is liberally discussed</b> when it comes to suppressing teacher's wages, yet any suggestion that we rethink textbook adoption funds or closer linking executive administrator compensation to teacher compensation, for example, is ignored.
And <b>shouldn't solidarity, by it's very definition, be shared and not rationed?</b> It seems the expectation that we're all in this together would mean that there's an understanding that labor and management should work together rather than treating work together for --gasp-- better teaching and learning as an accusation. It should mean that trust, while tough to work at (because things that are worth it always take work), should not be abandoned because when we err on the side of fact-finding rather than headfirst, Rappala-fishhook-in-mouth, don't-read-the-fine-print, blind agreements on things such as Race to the Top or other competitions for needed resources. Trust can mean we each verify our moves forward independently as we move forward together, even if we don't always move at the same speed. Solidarity definitely should not be rationed.
Isn't the reality that we should think in abundance when it comes to equality, efficiency, and solidarity in our public school system? <b>As Americans doesn't our arc of history bend toward expanding equality, sharing efficiency, and welcoming solidarity?</b>
Those are my questions as I land in Helsinki.Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-21895971175625149632011-07-23T11:06:00.003-05:002011-07-23T11:25:23.385-05:00Save Our Schools--Why I'm MarchingA few months ago when I decided to support the Save Our Schools March and Call to Action I had a long list of where I thought “education reform” had gone off the tracks. But it wasn’t what angered me or scared me that sparked my interest. It was finding a national community of people who matched the indomitable hope and determination that exists within me and the members of my union that we can do better together despite setbacks, insults, attacks and deliberate mischaracterizations.<br />
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Recently, I decided not just to support the Save Our Schools March and Call to Action; I decided to be there to march as well.<br />
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I’m marching for the teachers who joined me for the last 3 years in having the temerity to develop our own alternative licensure program for St. Paul: <i>CareerTeacher</i>--a better alternative to diversify our teaching force and meet the needs of all students.<br />
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I’m marching for the 4 years of work we’ve spent intentionally developing a full-spectrum, career-long, continuous-growth model teacher support and evaluation system based on peer assistance and review. I’m marching for an administration who believes in doing this work with us and not to us.<br />
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I’m marching with and on behalf of the St. Paul teachers who wanted a better, more direct relationship with parents and instituted a thoughtful parent home visit program.<br />
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I’m marching for the teachers who pitched the idea of a local union-delivered professional conference and then worked their tails off to deliver it six years in a row. And I’m marching for the 300+ teachers who have given up personal time that annual Saturday each spring to attend because they value learning from each other.<br />
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I’m marching for the veteran teachers who took monstrous amounts of their own free time to support me as I earned my National Board Certification. While Marlene Dietrich said something like “It’s the friends you can call at 2 in the morning that count” I know it’s the expert 20+ year veteran teachers you can email with questions in the middle of the night, who answer you back, who count for me.<br />
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I’m marching for the parents and teachers who want to set up site-governed schools.<br />
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I’m marching for the parents, community members and groups who have opened their doors and their ideas to our local union.<br />
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I’m marching for the success of the St. Paul Promise Neighborhood initiative, where a city, school district, community and union have come together to solve problems and meet the needs of people rather than point fingers.<br />
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I’m marching for every child who deserves a well-prepared and effective teacher, which is every child, by the way. Including my own. I march for my two children who, like their fellow public school peers, have one shot a great K-12 learning experience.<br />
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I'm marching for my dad and his peers who worked to improve the teaching profession I inherited from them with the understanding that I would not rest on their legacy but I would continue their work to improve teaching and learning as well. <br />
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The timing of the March could not be better <b>for me to march for the State of Minnesota</b>. We just finished a difficult and, in some cases, damaging shutdown by coming to some difficult and, in some cases, damaging conclusions.<br />
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However, I will march on Saturday with the stubborn, dogged determination of someone determined to work in community to make an opportunity out of every last policy-laden sentence of our new K-12 bill and maybe even the higher education one, too.<br />
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I will march for a statewide teacher support and evaluation framework that intentionally supports a teacher’s natural instinct to get stronger, not a system designed to play ‘gotcha.’<br />
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I will march with determination to reject someone’s intent to end integration aid and turn it into a vibrant, committed statewide conversation about ending racism and improving equity instead.<br />
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I will march to prove collective bargaining is the most powerful tool we have to reach our common goal as a state to meet the needs of every child.<br />
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I will march to do whatever I can to include parents in our work and in the conversations we’re going to have.<br />
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I will march for a principal support and evaluation program that most values support of good teaching and learning.<br />
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I will march for the work it will take to come together to prepare to deliver every child to post-secondary learning and assure that learning is affordable, accessible and excellent.<br />
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So, while my list of education reform gone off the tracks is long, my list of everything that suggests <b>our best days in public education are ahead of us</b> is longer, and more motivating. We can do this work together and so I invite you to join me where ever you can along this march.Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-38289451771778058552011-06-29T13:37:00.000-05:002011-06-29T13:37:56.322-05:00Fighting the status quo since 1918Dear SPFT Community:<br />
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Our union is a powerful force for justice, innovation and democracy. That sentiment often comes out when SPFT leaders have a conversation about our narrative with fellow members. The “narrative conversation” that stewards have been trained to hold with members is meant to introduce all our members to a story about us that is told by us. It is not a story told by <i>Waiting for Superman</i>. It is not a story financed by Bill Gates. It is a story lived out by our members as we spend each workday meeting the needs of our students and families. Our narrative is the one that promotes the real reason we chose to work in education, when we could have chosen to work anywhere. Our narrative story is the one that illuminates the needs of the whole child, not because issues like poverty, violence or homelessness keep us from teaching, but because those issues in our students’ lives keep us up at night. Our story about our work puts us at the table willing and able to solve problems.<br />
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I think the phrase about our union's work for justice, innovation and democracy gets highlighted because it is both historical and an accurate reflection. Unions, by our very nature and definition, have historically and persistently challenged the status quo. We represent change and evolution. Unions represent progress. It is our union's job to challenge the status quo. The Labor Movement is responsible for child labor laws, for access to affordable health care, and safety standards. Unions helped put an end to discrimination of all kinds. Teachers unions, in particular, played a critical role in improving the school day and improving instruction by setting standards for the teaching profession. There is no statement more untrue in the deliberately debilitating education debate than “unions protect the status quo.”<br />
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Local 28, the Saint Paul Federation of Teachers, has a long history of effectively challenging the status quo. Managers, administrators, and politicians have sought to destroy unions throughout history for the plain fact that we consistently, and often effectively, challenge the status quo. We won equal pay for equal work to end salary discrimination against female teachers. SPFT was the first teachers union to go on strike to insist on healthy teaching and learning conditions. <br />
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Recently, our union challenged the status quo about teacher evaluations and traditional site governance. As a result, we won contract language that will build a promising, career-long, continuous support and evaluation system. Additionally, we now have agreed to a process for groups of educators to explore site governance within our district so teachers don’t have to take their innovative ideas to charter schools. We are active politically, too. This session we challenged the status quo argument that teachers aren’t accountable. We challenged the status quo by fighting for a fair economy and budget solution.<br />
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We have more status quo to challenge. Our state government needs a special session to finish their homework. We’re beginning contract negotiations. We’ve just elected our building stewards. This summer, another round of MCA scores will be released where the same things will be said by the same people. All of these events offer us an opportunity to continue to challenge the status quo and work collectively for justice, innovation and democracy. <br />
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Together,<br />
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mary cathrynMary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-58197523211191929202011-05-02T23:58:00.001-05:002011-05-03T00:10:08.939-05:00Teacher Appreciation DayMay 3, 2011<br />
Dear SPFT Community:<br />
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Happy Teacher Appreciation Day to all of our educators!</span><br />
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I celebrate this Teacher Appreciation Day with more reverence than ever.<br />
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As a student I had teachers who cared for me so greatly I can’t even begin to tell you what I actually learned from them, teachers I learned so much from I never noticed if they cared about me or not and I loved both experiences.<br />
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As I have shared before, I grew up in a family of teachers. I saw, firsthand, the work that went into getting ready to teach a new class in the fall. I knew the stress difficult negotiations put on a house. I knew the sleep lost over limited resources, student behavior, or colleagues.<br />
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As a teacher, I have experienced, firsthand, the lightening quick speed of a class period humming along on a well-tuned lesson and the abject pain of a clock ticking on a lesson that I can’t for the life of me figure out how it bombed.<br />
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I have had the privilege of spending time learning from some of this city’s best educators and I’ve spent time in deep distress with a teacher accused of failing to teach.<br />
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Now as a parent I’ve had 8 years of teachers in St. Paul Public Schools taking responsibility to teach my children. I’ve experienced, firsthand, the anticipation of parent/teacher conferences, the panic of bedtime due-date revelations, and the slope of the learning curve that is supporting your child through Everyday Math.<br />
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I celebrate your work on this Teacher Appreciation Day because I want everyone to recognize the teaching profession’s complexities as I have as a student, family member, practitioner, and parent. <br />
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I want students to understand and appreciate why, when you could have done anything, you chose to teach and I want those students to learn from you.<br />
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I want our families to see and be proud of the work we do.<br />
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I want every educator in the Saint Paul Federation of Teachers to know the thrill of that well-honed lesson and have the thorough support of our colleagues when we need help diagnosing what afflicted the other one.<br />
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I want a teaching and learning system designed for continuous growth and improvement for our teachers so we all get to learn from and become some of the best teachers in this city.<br />
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I want every parent in St. Paul to choose St. Paul Public Schools, to choose to have you educating their children because I know they would appreciate you like I do.<br />
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Happy Teacher Appreciation Day! Please take care of yourself and take care of each other.<br />
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Together, mary cathrynMary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-4933599996025991812010-03-23T14:15:00.003-05:002010-03-23T16:20:55.798-05:00Solving the budget and learning deficit, togetherAt the November SPFT membership meeting, the members present determined that we should go through a process of gathering input from members across the district about the just-then announced projected SPPS district budget deficit for 2010-11.<br /><br />Building stewards and SPFT leaders took time in January and February to hold SPFT-community conversations about the SPPS budget in buildings and program sites. They brought over 61 unique ideas for cost-cutting or revenue-raising from our members to the February membership meeting to share. Our SPFT Executive Board looked at every idea and discussed them at length at our March meeting. We passed along every idea to Superintendent Valeria Silva and the SPFT Executive Board narrowed down the prioritized recommendations, based on the frequency with which they were mentioned or another relevant factor, to share with the Board of Education. <br /><br />We owe much thanks to the building stewards and leaders who took time to have this important conversation with members. If our union and our members want to be a part of decision-making in St. Paul Public Schools, we must be part of the brain-storming and problem-solving as well. We will continue taking ideas and share them with the District until the final 2010-11 budget is passed. <br /><br />This budget deficit was not created by a singular situation, and the solution will not be a singular one either. Every decision, whether complex, monumental and gut-wrenching like school closings or seemingly simple like no more dry erase markers, will have consequences. <br /><br />Will it be possible to solve this financial deficit and better meet the needs of our students? Can we be just as mindful of the deficit that has built up in their education that doesn't get the same attention as the looming end to a fiscal year and the neatness of a balance sheet? How can we work together just as hard to insure that all of our students in St. Paul Public Schools have access to a high-quality, universal school experience that prepares them for a world that is evolving in front of us?<br /><blockquote>• Right now, students have a 100% chance of their hair stylist being properly licensed through a standards-based licensure program, but not a 100% chance of their teacher being properly licensed at the beginning of their teaching career.<br />• Right now, access to information doubles every 6 months because of technology, but our students are served in over 80 school libraries/media centers by just over a dozen full-time, licensed library-media specialists.<br />• Right now not a week goes by without some publication lamenting that there is an obesity epidemic in children, yet there is no guaranteed access to a licensed health/physical education specialist for elementary school children.</blockquote><br />When will these deficits, <em><strong>and more</strong></em> that we could list and our members have the expertise to meet, be addressed as urgently? What role can our union members, together with our Board of Education and Superintendent Valeria Silva, play in addressing the learning needs of all our students so that we can proudly offer the best, high-quality, universal public school experience for every student in St. Paul?<br />It will be up to all of us to make sure that students are not merely still served as a result of these decisions, but that our students are actually better served whenever possible. If that is not possible, then we must be willing to admit that, and do everything we can collectively to remedy it.Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-32265747833684080522010-03-17T21:55:00.003-05:002010-03-17T22:04:26.219-05:00Sorrow from Central High SchoolThe work that fills the days of all of us is put into perspective by the tragic death of a child, one of our students. Children are the reason we do any of this work: successful conferences, well-designed lesson plans, balancing a budget, negotiating professional working conditions. We do all of this work for those children and their families who trust us with their most precious resource.<br /><br />When we lose a student, the rumors or innuendo swirling around what happened distract us from the profound loss we experience in a school, a district, and in our future. As the news spread about the accident that took a Central High School student’s life our first thoughts were of that student, then the family and school community, and then to the students we serve and would face the next day. For some of us our lessons today went exactly as planned, for others it was a teaching day they hope never to experience again. Regardless, many of us paused and looked at our students differently, maybe watched them walk to the bus a little longer than usual, or made an extra phone call home before ending a school day that we would never get back.<br /><br />In high school I memorized a passage of Meditation XVII from John Donne, the metaphysical writer, because it was an assignment and I thought it was a cool piece of trivia to learn that one writer (Hemingway) could lift a line from another writer (Donne) and use it as his book title (<em>For Whom the Bell Tolls</em>). What I didn’t know is I would remember it because it speaks so accurately of our interconnectedness, in this case how all of us come together to make our district whole. <br /><br /><em>No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.</em><br /><br />While it speaks to how we are made lesser by our losses, our losses can also remind us to redouble our efforts to do our best work preparing for conferences, delivering lessons, settling the budget, negotiating for our members, and making our profession stronger on behalf of the students and families we serve as the best and only way to fill that void.Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-21378909726247890192010-03-04T13:50:00.003-06:002010-03-04T13:57:28.840-06:00Devastating Race to the Top newsMinnesota is not a finalist for the Phase 1 Race to the Top grant funds from the Federal Department of Education. The St. Paul Federation of Teachers first worked to learn about Race to the Top, we questioned it, we offered ideas and feedback to the Minnesota Department of Education at every opportunity and we decided to support Minnesota’s application. It is very disappointing that Minnesota was not named as a finalist today, yet we can be proud of the work we did on the application.<br /><br />The restructuring we are required to do remains mandatory, but today's announcement means we will have to continue that work in the district with money we don’t have. The bolder innovation and further possibilities for innovation we just successfully negotiated into our contract are in serious financial jeopardy as a result. <br /><br />With all of that said, this is not a moment to give up, but it is a moment to redouble our efforts and perhaps even find more creative solutions to funding our ideas—as we did with our teacher recruitment and preparation ideas that have become CareerTeacher, which is now funded with a 1-year planning grant from the AFT Innovation Fund. We will continue to pay attention to any next steps that evolve from this announcement or the Race to the Top program and determine what our involvement could be as well. <br /><br />I am grateful for those who believed in our value in the discussion and application development.Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-60555764121948055762010-01-22T17:21:00.005-06:002010-01-22T17:41:22.686-06:00To everything, a seasonThe Saint Paul Federation of Teachers knew that we were going to have difficult contract negotiations when we formed our team last year. Starting in February 2009, the Board of Education publicly and prominently took every opportunity to unilaterally impose a non-negotiated wage and benefit freeze on us. Yet, while the economy was already daunting and the budget discussion at the legislature and Board of Education had our attention, what also had us concerned was that we were going to be negotiating a contract amidst a great deal of uncertainty. The superintendent was leaving, three school board members were up for re-election, two of our high schools were going through grueling and punishing restructuring, and American Reinvestment and Recovery Act funds were being spent in our district without any teacher input. <br /><br />We realized we had a choice: we could try to ride it out or we could show leadership ourselves and steer the ship. We decided to take the opportunity to show leadership and go into this round of contract negotiations with a powerful set of values guiding our agendas, our discussions, and our decisions. We focused our priorities in values that recognize the most important work in education occurs between educator and student,knowing that effective decision-making in education must arise from an educator’s professional practice in order to be good for students, and we wanted to ensure that educators are valued and that teaching is a sustainable profession. <strong>We were determined to show that our union is committed to help deliver excellent education to all learners and it can be done through our contract.</strong><br /><br />As a result, <strong>we sought to move the most important decisions made on behalf of students closer to students and into the hands of professional classroom teachers. </strong>Because of this focus, we won a significant opportunity for teachers and support staff to be integrally involved in their school restructuring when it has to occur, rather than forcing them to sit and watch it happen to their students and their school community. We won the opportunity to have a serious discussion about site-governed schools in our district, which will bring much-needed, community-specific conversations about what is best for students directly to the teachers who serve them. We won the ability to create a comprehensive, ‘full-spectrum’ peer assistance and review program that will substantially improve the support teachers get to remain effective as well as strengthening the achievement of tenure process during the three-year probationary period.<br /><br />We reject the notion that our recent contract settlement was little more than a myopic agreement on wages. <strong>Our contract settlement signaled an opportunity to begin to trust teachers with decisions made about teaching and learning.</strong> Our very modest wage increases, despite the public and persistent pressure to freeze our salary and benefits, merely begin to recognize the additional responsibilities we have to our students. The decision-making agreed to offers an opportunity to continue steering the ship for our profession and the students we serve.Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-44943133221070130652010-01-11T21:00:00.003-06:002010-01-11T21:17:58.404-06:00Tentative Agreement for TeachersThe Values guiding our negotiating work:<br /><blockquote><em>• The most important work in education occurs between educator and student<br />• Effective decision-making in education must arise from educators’ professional practice<br />• By ensuring that educators are valued and that teaching is a sustainable profession, our union helps deliver excellent education to all learners</em></blockquote><br />With these goals in mind, the Saint Paul Federation of Teachers achieved the following in our 2009 contract negotiations:<br />*A starting salary of $40,000+ for beginning teachers in 2010<br />*Stronger standards for achievement of tenure, both in additional administrative observations and in the development of a full-spectrum peer assistance and review program (see below).<br />*Moved significant decision-making into our professional hands:<br /><br /><strong>Full-spectrum Peer Assistance and Review</strong><br />The union successfully negotiated the development of a “full-spectrum” peer assistance and review program. Our PAR program will recognize teaching as a profession of life-long learning and move away from the deficit-based thinking about teacher evaluation. The St. Paul PAR program will be developed to offer support in the traditional peer assistance and review areas by offering a more comprehensive and thorough achievement of tenure program as well as offer assistance to teachers identified as struggling in addition to offering support for teachers who self-identify or anticipate difficulties in a new or returning assignment and want to be supported in order to prevent failing. The St. Paul PAR program will also have significant opportunities for already strong teachers to explore new professional pathways (such as becoming a Master teacher in the CareerTeacher program), challenges (such as earning National Board Certification), and other opportunities to enhance their professionalism and/or give back to the profession (training to become a mentor, for example.) Just as good teachers differentiate instruction to meet the needs of every learner, our peer assistance and review program will differentiate to meet the needs of every teacher and be an asset to the profession.<br /><br /><strong>Transforming our schools through restructuring</strong><br />The union successfully negotiated a comprehensive process for school restructuring when restructuring is called for by No Child Left Behind or by the Board of Education. The restructured school will have a complete “Election to Work” agreement presented to staff by February 15th the year before the proposed restructuring that will be developed cooperatively with the staff and mutually approved by the union and the district that explicitly outlines:<br />• The application and selection process for staff, if there is to be one<br />• The vision and expected instructional program of the school<br />• The hours of instruction and length of the school day as well as the expected degree of flexibility that will be required of the staff<br />• The length of the school year and the school calendar<br />• The expected length of time teachers may be required to be present in the school outside of the school’s instructional day<br />• Any additional compensation program that will apply to the particular Restructured School that is different from the standard compensation schedule.<br />Further, contract language was secured that would require an annual review of restructured schools to determine the success of the restructuring and to identify practices and approaches that should be duplicated or avoided.<br /><br /><strong>Site-governed Schools</strong><br />The union also won a statement of intent on Site-governed schools that will be added to the contract recognizing the extraordinary opportunity the Minnesota Site-governed school statute (123B.045) offers to create innovative school environments better designed for individual school populations. The district agreed to form a committee to begin exploring the opportunity this new legislation presents for our students immediately upon ratification of the contract to report and recommend to the superintendent and the SPFT Executive Board as soon as possible, but no later than May 1, 2011.<br /><br /><strong>Thank You</strong><br />The Saint Paul Federation of Teachers could not have won such comprehensive professional contract language if it wasn’t for the significant support, ideas and mentoring of our fellow local teachers unions. We owe a great deal of debt to the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, the Toledo Federation of Teachers, the Rochester Federation of Teachers, the New Haven Federation of Teachers, the Hillsborough (FL) Classroom Teachers Association, and the leaders of the AFT Teachers Program and Policy Council. We are indebted to our state union Education Minnesota for their support of our members and our national union the American Federation of Teachers for their belief in our ideas. Finally and notably, we are grateful to our members in St. Paul for trusting us to negotiate a contract on behalf of them, the students we serve, and the profession to which we’re dedicated.Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-90543689444593707872009-11-23T16:16:00.002-06:002009-11-23T16:19:24.545-06:00A process well-traveledTonight the St. Paul Public Schools Board of Education will announce the results of their search for a new superintendent. This will be the 5th superintendent in my 4.5 years as president of the Saint Paul Federation of Teachers. The members of Local 28 stand ready to work with this next superintendent and we are poised to offer our expertise to collectively meet the needs of our students and the families who trust us with their children. Much of what draws a member of the teacher’s union into education is probably shared with a good superintendent candidate: the belief that one person’s work can make a difference, the joy of working in community on a common goal, the belief of public education’s place in building a good society, the vexation with the barrier that race, socio-economic status, gender and more can play in the path to success and the determination to do something about it.<br /><br />We believe that the most important work in public education occurs between an educator and a student. We look forward to a superintendent who will join us in this vital relationship. <br /><br />In anticipation of that, I have appreciated the thoughtful work of the Board of Education in this search process starting with the outstanding and unprecedented action by Tom Goldstein of resigning to allow for Director Jean O’Connell to be actively involved in the final stage of the search. He is to be commended for his thoughtful and unselfish contribution to the search results.<br /><br />I also appreciated the Board members taking time to attend and listen to all the staff/community sessions with each of the finalists. Their attention to and care of a broad opinion base speaks very highly of their intention to lead with us going forward. I am grateful for the time they have put into the search process and thank them for their careful deliberation.<br /><br />And now, the envelope please...Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-52025833875852202022009-11-13T17:20:00.002-06:002009-11-13T18:00:51.647-06:00Partners in education? Wait & SeeOne of the two most prominent findings this fall, from the superintendent search firm Hazard, Young & Associates, was the identification of the severely fractured relationships in our district. Yet, no semi-finalist candidate identified at Wednesday night’s special Board of Education meeting—when they had the opportunity in professional biographies written in their own words—listed collaboration any place among their professional histories of “significant accomplishments.”<br /><br />Leadership is clearly about accomplishing something and taking responsibility for your work, but leaders know that real partnerships are not only critical to creating great work, partnerships are essential to sustaining that great work, too. Otherwise you're just a manager directing people to do things. Are we supposed to believe that these candidates did what they did alone? Or are we to believe they did it by telling workers, parents and community what do do, how to do it and when it needed to be done?<br /><br />The absence of any evidence, again that they had the opportunity to list in their own words, that they value a collaborative environment that brought them the success they were proud to list has me eager to listen as carefully as possible to their public interviews this weekend.<br /><br />This weekend will offer one more chance for each of them, in their own words, to offer even a modicum of evidence that any of them expect to find value in the 6,000 employees and community of over a quarter million people that one of them may be poised to inherit.<br /><br />Or we call a do-over.Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-88505364096744786842009-11-02T10:44:00.003-06:002009-11-02T10:51:19.969-06:00Vote for Vallay Moua Varro and Jean O'Connell!The Saint Paul Federation of Teachers is looking forward to the future of St. Paul Public Schools, which is why we chose to endorse two candidates who are looking forward with us. Vallay Moua Varro and Jean O’Connell have both shown a propensity to listen thoughtfully, demonstrate leadership, and see the best of what our schools offer. Both Vallay and Jean are school board candidates in this race who care as much as we do about the future of all our students, rather than being stuck in the past with insulting stereotypes of ethnicity and gender. We reject the bullying and shallow politics that have divided us and we are inspired by both Vallay’s and Jean’s good ideas and their plans to bring them to fruition cooperatively.<br /><br />Pat Igo’s gross mischaracterization of this school board race, in the October 26th StarTribune story, with his superficial, inaccurate race-baiting says more about the rhetoric of the past he would bring to the school board when what we need most is relevant and insightful direction for our district so we can move forward together. <br /><br />You cannot roll up your sleeves to improve our future if you’re busy wringing your hands over the past. Fortunately for St. Paul voters we have two candidates who took different paths to this school board race but came to the same conclusion: St. Paul Public Schools is still poised to offer a world of opportunities for all of our students with all of us working together. <br /><br />We are honored that they both chose to share their clear talents and leadership with us and proud to endorse them both. We look forward to working alongside Vallay Moua Varro and Jean O’Connell to meet the needs of our students.<br /><br /><em>(This posting was submitted to the StarTribune as a letter to the editor on October 27th.)</em>Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-14761831720602914662009-09-10T21:52:00.002-05:002009-09-10T21:57:16.667-05:00Back-to-school businessToday as I was visiting two buildings, one elementary and one middle school, it struck me how much teachers build on the work of each other and how profoundly that can help students. <br /><br />I walked into Paul and Sheila Wellstone at lunch time. There is no better time to witness the muscle that goes into the work of teaching than to visit a building at lunchtime. Lessons pour out of every corner: five teachers leaving the lunch room teaching each class of students sequencing, taking turns, and respect simultaneously and in Spanish, another three teachers are bringing their classes to the lunchroom while walking backwards and teaching the same lessons, and in adjacent classrooms teachers are teaching students how to focus on the lesson in the room rather than the classes walking by outside their doors.<br /><br />That sequencing will come in handy during reading lessons, taking turns while teaching patterns, and respect absolutely everywhere it can. The focusing and routines they are learning these first days of school will be built on each year after that, which was entirely evident when I walked through some classes later today at Washington Technology Magnet. One classroom had students working in small groups. When I approached them to ask what they were doing they rattled off exactly what their small group work was, in the order it was to be done. They explained their complex math problem to me, explained what they had to do once they solved it and then explained how they were going to explain it with the materials they had. <strong>Sequencing.</strong><br /><br />Another room I walked into was setting up expectations for the year by completing a T-graph with “My Job” (for the teacher) and “Your Job” (for the students). A great lesson to not only establish routines and expectations for the year, but to infuse the language of career and responsibility in a very relevant way into their vocabulary. The teacher shared, then students shared, the teacher shared and then students shared again. <strong>Taking turns.</strong><br /><br />I walked into another classroom, jam-packed with students—not a desk or square inch of floor space to spare—and the teacher ushered me to the front after finishing his explanation of what he wanted students to do for the last 5 minutes of class. As he and I spoke quietly and surveyed his classroom of students everyone was working right up to the bell. <strong>Respect</strong> and <strong>focus.</strong><br /><br />These teachers and these classroom experiences were not accidental. Our teachers know the importance of creating the right classroom climate and establishing routines right away. Today, I had the privilege of seeing how it all comes together to benefit student learning in the long run. The expectations set at each grade level, are set for the next grade or class, too. <br /><br />It’s clear that our teachers intend to make it a great year for our students. I am once again humbled by their work.Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-1559900450171118822009-09-04T23:02:00.002-05:002009-09-04T23:09:30.690-05:00All in a day's workQuestioning the motivation of reaching out to students. Reviled for wanting to spend time with them at all when there’s more Important work to be done. Given no credit for offering any inspiration and no hope of anything getting Accomplished by your work. Suspected of merely wasting time. Assuming that nothing Productive will come of it. Skeptical because there is no way to Measure the impact. With all of the significant ways to spend your time, why would anyone with talent and leadership skills spend it with kids?<br /><br />Criticism of President Obama? Only in the last week, but this is the world teachers have lived in for quite a while. Yet we begin another school year with teachers well practiced in how to tune out the white noise of irrelevant critics or citywide commotion and focus on what matters: students learning. In St. Paul we just spent another workshop week getting ready in district-wide meetings, with small groups of our colleagues and independently working on lessons, only this time we face a rather normal first week of school with children, so if you would, please pardon us for not getting our collective noses out of joint around a little pep talk intended to be delivered to our students for a few minutes on Tuesday.<br /><br />It was a different story this time last year because St. Paul, Minnesota was bracing for the Republican National Convention. A super majority of our bus routes had to be altered for the whole week. Teachers were trying to track down rumors of high school students planning protests. Our kindergartners stayed home two extra days (not because we were making them protest to the best of my knowledge, it was in case the bus routes got too long). Everyone was scrambling to find or share curriculum. A myriad of calls came to the union with hypothetical questions, but above all else, the over-riding attitude was “How do we make this work for our students?” <em>by everyone.</em><br /><br />This time last year I was at a staff meeting at Paul and Sheila Wellstone Elementary School, barely a few blocks from the site of the Republican National Convention and I had some members of my union ask me "What if President Bush wants to do a photo op at our school?" <br /><br />I said, "We'll make sure he can because he's the President of the United States and it will be an experience that your students will remember for the rest of their lives." Every last teacher agreed that it would be an experience for their students that they would not pass up. They went on to say that maybe even Senator Norm Coleman would want to stop by since he used to have his staff tutor there when he was mayor of St. Paul.<br /><br />Had any of it happened, it would've been extremely cool because Wellstone Elementary is the one St. Paul school his dad, President George H. W. Bush, had visited when he was president. Back then it was called Saturn-School of Tomorrow, or something similarly Jetson-y and hopeful of the 21st Century; however no school visits ever happened by any Republicans anywhere in the city. <br /><br />This time last year it was also the first week of school for our students, with all the garden-variety, first-week-of-school technicalities, glitches, blessings, surprises, accidents, and sunrise-like expectations that a new year always brings. St. Paul Public Schools was, perhaps, the most inconvenienced school district in the nation, yet we all carried an attitude of making this work for our students. That is probably a huge reason it did. Many teachers capitalized on it like the once-in-a-lifetime teachable moment that it was. There was never a massive outcry from the community or a similar great gnashing of teeth that we were using the Republican National Convention to teach our students.<br /><br /><strong>Some things MUST transcend politics.</strong><br /><br />Again, please pardon St. Paul if we treat this like one more teachable moment in the lives of our students. Our teachers are well-versed in tuning out the fracas and our community can handle it.<br /><br />Oh, and welcome to our profession, President Obama. Speak even if your voice shakes. We do.Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-56743014805032178952009-08-31T19:45:00.002-05:002009-08-31T20:04:20.303-05:00Let the games beginRecently the comment period for the US Department of Education proposed Race to the Top guidelines was closed. After reading through the proposed criteria (http://www.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html) I submitted my thoughts to the Department of Education. I will share them over the next few days here.<br /><br /><em>Dear Secretary Duncan: <br /><br />Thank you for the opportunity to submit comments on the proposed criteria for Race to the Top funding. I was honored to be invited to attend the announcement on July 24th as a guest of the American Federation of Teachers. There are many goals in Race to the Top that inspire me, and with the right detail in the finalized criteria, these unprecedented resources could transform my profession in a way that allows us to meet the needs of our students and their families like never before. Because the Department of Education is providing an opportunity to make comments I would like to express my ideas for targeting the criteria in a way that better sustains the best work teachers already do and supports us as we tap our collective experience and knowledge to bring our most innovative ideas to life.<br /><br /><strong>State Standards & Teaching Standards:</strong><br /><br />The collaboration you have outlined for developing and establishing common state standards is evident and helpful. In the same way that you have clearly outlined the expectations for high quality state standards and assessments in A(3) of the State Reform Conditions Criteria, the expectation for teacher preparation and teacher readiness must include clear expectations as well. It is not enough to limit the definition of measurement for or the conversation about teacher effectiveness to “regulatory barriers to linking data on student achievement or student growth” as you have defined with this notice. Generic student achievement data will not relevantly evaluate a teacher. [C(2)] <br /><br />In St. Paul, we have gotten an agreement from St. Paul Public Schools to develop a Peer Assistance and Review program that covers the spectrum of teaching quality. Our intention is to enhance our current Achievement of Tenure Program so that earning tenure is never accidental, to have high-quality and relevant support for struggling teachers with clear expectations for improvement, as well as to have opportunities for strong teachers to be conscientiously supported as they continue to grow. A deliberate, rigorous path to tenure, support for someone before they fail, and further support for already strong teachers should be the focus of any meaningful local way of addressing teacher quality. To merely frame the discussion as tied to standardized test scores is to ignore the vast amount of learning and assessment a teacher is responsible for during the majority of our school year. My position is for the proposed criteria to be written to include the deliberate inclusion of developing teaching standards and evaluations that measure the entire scope of the daily and aggregate work a teacher is expected to do. Locally developed, relevant evaluations will be applicable to the broadest range of teachers and better capture the number of grade levels, specialties, disciplines, and experience levels for the targeted expectations you have outlined for professional development.[C(2)i]</em>Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692097901477390748.post-18669820932688596972009-07-21T19:28:00.001-05:002009-07-22T07:22:24.951-05:00Educational Assistant Bargaining IssuesToday the work of the Educational Assistant Bargaining Team, from the training in January-the surveying this spring-and the planning and research this summer, really took off.<br /><br />The EA bargaining team (Sue Snyder, Ann Sirios, Terri Furman, Rosie O’Brien, Mary Cathryn Ricker, staffed by Gundy Gunderson and Amy Derwinski) met with the district and presented the topics critical to improvement of the 2009-2011 contract.<br /><br />Since a lot of the “housekeeping” work has been done, today’s meeting was an opportunity to begin to define what a robust labor/management partnership could mean to the students we serve when we thoughtfully address <br />job descriptions, <br />professional development, <br />seniority and movement within jobs, <br />working conditions, <br />security, <br />retirement, and <br />benefits/compensation.<br /><br />Even though these topics were listed individually, the discussion among the team-and presented to the district- focused on how these subjects are enhanced and improved, just like a staff, when working together rather than discussed in isolation. The best way to do that is through a sustained, committed labor/management partnership and that partnership can begin at this bargaining table.<br /><br />The Contract Action Team will be meeting on July 30th and two members of the EA bargaining team will be there to share more.Mary Cathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05455963908552367293noreply@blogger.com0