Tacoma School Board Meeting: 2/12/2009
by Chris Van Vechten
It’s finally here, tangible evidence of one of the worst school board meetings the Tacoma School District has yet held. Part of the blame rests with School Board member Kim Golding, who seemingly remains uncomfortable with her new role as president of the school board. With the force of Jim Dugan’s commanding presence absent, the general tone and flow of the meeting drifted off topic and out of touch. The meeting ends with nearly 20 minutes of calendar-checking and irrelevant banter among the school board about when to schedule the next meeting.
But what made this meeting truly horrifying was that the school board endorsed a resolution to support Senate Bill 5444 – a massive 111 page document that would totally reorganize and redefine the service of public education in Washington State. Included in this bill is implementation of the Core for 24, which would expand the number of core requirements for high school graduation in Washington state in order to provide more arts education (a suggestion which I and most of my fellow arts commissioners vehemently oppose.) Luckily, our Tacoma School Board does too and they amended the resolution before voting on it by deleting their endorsement of the Core for 24.
But what is truly horrifying is that the resolution, which the Board eventually voted for (3 in favor, 1 abstention and 1 excused) was only delivered to the school board a few hours prior and no one who voted in favor of it was fully aware of what the bill included. Only Kurt Miller, who abstained from voting, admitted that he had not read it – nor should he be expected to given the way the resolution was thrust upon the board. What followed was a 30 minute debate about how soon is too soon to vote on a resolution. After that was finished, the votes were cast with virtually no tangible discussion about what was included in either the resolution or the bill it was intended to endorse.
In brief, SB5444 does the following and more
- 1) Eliminates I-728 funding
- 2) Ties student test scores to the ability of a teacher to keep his/her license
- 3) Creates a new teaching certificate model with a three tier system.
- 4) Adopts pay-for performance
- 5) Expands the school year by 10 days without expanding the school system’s budget
- Thankfully, a resolution is merely a statement of support for an idea – not an act of law in itself. But that being said, when the Tacoma School District (some 30,000 students strong) issues a resolution, it makes a fairly large statement. It’s effect on the legislature will be significant in molding the collective opinion of our representatives…..and all that justifies a more thorough examination of the facts!
- POST SCRIPT
- Thursday, February 26, 2009 6:00PM
- The Melon invites all of its allies to attend the School Board Meeting to either testify or merely show-up in support of convincing the School Board to broadcast its meetings on public television. Thus far, The Melon has been providing coverage as a public service since July of 2008 – but this is becoming problematic in a weakening economy and we can no longer do this as private individuals. We nonetheless believe that these meetings are not only important, but more digestible than most other civic meetings and should be broadcast. Elliot Trotter and myself both plan to speak, and invite anyone else with an interest in doing so to join us.
February 20th, 2009 at 9:39 am
“2) Ties student test scores to the ability of a teacher to keep his/her license”
Because what we need are more ways to get rid of teachers…
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Chris Van Vechten Reply:
February 20th, 2009 at 11:44 am
@Joe Izenman, Also, what purpose would this serve other than to encourage teachers to teach a test rather than a subject
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February 20th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Your analysis of these bills is way off.
They’ve been gutted anyway, with the legislature drafting new compromise legislation, hopefully to be out of committee before the deadline on the 25th.
So not that it matters anymore, but:
1) I-728 funding would be unnecessary, because the bills would include small class sizes as part of the constitutional definition of basic education. In Washington State, our constitution includes the right to ample funding of basic education (not a right we have at the federal level, which is why we see so many federal unfunded mandates). Meaning, if small class sizes are constitutionally required, they become an untouchable part of the state budget, and not subject to political/economic whim as 728 funds are. This makes a lot of sense to lawyers (and the WA State Supreme court, which is the important thing) but apparently confuses everyone else.
2)Test scores were just one of three criteria, none holding extra weight over the other. The other two include peer evaluations (by out of district peers) and review of classwork. As part of the legislation, teachers would also receive extra support in the form of an extensive mentorship program.
3) The new teaching certificate model was designed to eliminate the requirement for new teachers to take expensive additional coursework, which has been shown to have little to no impact on teaching ability. In other words, no more need to go out and get a masters or PHD in your “spare time” while teaching during the day. The part that a lot of teachers objected to was the third tier – which would require National Board Certification. It was always expected that this would be amended and clarified, but in the debate it seemed to get lost. I would be shocked if the compromise bill didn’t change this. The point to changing the salary ladder was to make it less expensive for teachers and more beneficial for kids. Something I think everyone would like.
Regardless, no existing teacher would have been forced to opt in to the new system for over a decade. There is talk of the compromise bill eliminating any requirement that existing teachers opt in.
4) “Pay for Performance” is a nice three word way to put it, but it would seem to imply some kind of produce or fail quota system, not the system of peer review and mentorship.
5) Again – those 10 inservice days become a part of the definition of basic education. See point 1.
I expect the new legislation to clarify some of these points and compromise on others, but I do object to the way you describe this legislation, which I and many other parents, educators, superintendents, and school boards have been working to put into place.
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motherof3boys Reply:
February 20th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
@Jenyum/Tacomamama, thanks for posting this much needed clarification! Great job posting the facts regarding these bills.
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February 20th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I watched the whole thing to see what you were so upset about and I have to say I don’t get it. The meeting progressed from agenda item to agenda item, ending I guess in a discussion about when to hold the next meeting. (And I guess you didn’t film that, so unless there was someone forced to remain in the building while that happened, I don’t see a problem.)
When I read your post, it made me angry. Because everywhere I go, I run into Kim Golding, working working working on issues related to the schools. I suppose the discussion about waiver days could have been shorter. (But note – it’s also related to school funding, and the state legislation. Those ten “extra” days? Those are funded teacher inservice days.)
My problem is that there are so many crucial educational issues in our city and state right now, and here you are nitpicking about meeting management and videotaping meetings.
Core 24 (which is not “Core for 24″) also is only very tangentially related to arts education. The point behind it was to fund more periods in the day for all college entry requirements. In many districts, the state is only paying for a five period day and the districts are picking up the tab for a 6th, or even a 7th. Somehow, it’s been construed as an effort to make it harder for kids to graduate, and more work should be done to clarify this (or possibly to make it optional for each district) before it is reintroduced into any legislation.
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Chris Van Vechten Reply:
February 21st, 2009 at 10:58 am
@Jenyum/Tacomamama, I’m not saying Kim is not competent to be on the school board – I’m saying she has yet to grow into her role as president of the board.
At no point do you bring up the fact that the board voted on a resolution for a bill they hadn’t read and – by their own admission – weren’t fully aware of. Watch minutes 11:00-13:00 & 18:00-20:00 This is unacceptable.
As to the bill itself, I got those five points from a greater list produced by attorneys who both drafted and analyzed the projected impact – I defer to their assessment.
Peer review and review of class work are already a staple of public education – often performed by the unions who have both a professional and financial interest in promoting quality. Is there room for improvement – yes. But when you begin to pay teachers based on how high their students score on tests, what incentive do senior teachers have to be mentors to novices? Pay for performance insures that pedagogy will become a competition between teachers for pay – rather than a group effort to educate youth.
Core for 24 is about removing the element of choice from both teachers and students. Students need to do more than just receive an education, they must play an active role in actually designing and tailoring their classroom experience to meet their specific needs. Otherwise they do not become independent functional members of society. If anything we need fewer cores. If you want more class periods, that’s alright. But mandating what students do with that time is not. Washington has to learn that success in the classroom is not rooted in the curriculum of its schools but in the pedagogical philosophy of its system.
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Tacomamama Reply:
February 21st, 2009 at 12:33 pm
@Chris Van Vechten
Right, you got that assessment from the WEA mass emailing that went out to everyone. (Because they introduced a competing bill) It’s pretty misleading.
I have read the bill, and the full funding coalition bill, (from the WEA) and as I said it really doesn’t matter now but I stand by my original points. It was not a pay for performance bill. For now, a more productive thing to do than arguing about this would be to get involved in the drafting process of the new bill, so that we can actually get something done this legislative session.
Re: Core 24, again, no. What SB5444 would have done would have 1) established funding for a 24 credit high school program and 2) set up a process for the state board of ed to (later) decide what that entailed. I think it would have gone over better were it spelled out that the bill did not mandate a particular program, which it didn’t.
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September 6th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
New here. Wanted to say hello.
Thanks,
Andrew McFaul
Andy McFaul
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