JOAN BRUBAKER Forum--Vista Teacher's Union Seeks Total Control

In the continuing war against teachers in VUSD, the North County Times editorial board has again allowed a fact free paranoid fantasy to be published as a Forum.

Today Joan Brubaker's forum accused the teachers of VUSD of getting rid of Lindamood Bell in some kind of power grab because the teachers do not care whether or not students learn to read. What? Yes that's right. You and I do not care whether or not our students can read--according to Joan Brubaker and the editorial staff at the North County Times.

The standards at the North County Times this fall seem to be, anything written that attacks Vista Teachers is allowed. No need to fact check. No other editorial standards applied. The Joan Bruebaker Forum--"Vista Teacher's Union Seeks Total Control" is found at this URL:

http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/article_ca1b424c-156c-52d7-8169-d3eb741bc3be.html?mode=story

My response to reading Brubaker's Forum piece was first, What? Teachers got rid of LMB? No, it was the parents. Why attack the teachers? Then I wrote the following reply to Brubaker in the comment section.

Does this Brubaker Forum make sense to anyone?

Come on really, the teachers do not want students to learn to read?

Teachers are individually being tracked by the district admin on how well their students are reading using the Edusoft computer scoring. The district is being tracked by state and federal governments. Everyone wants the children to learn to read. It is our number one imperative with HUGE financial and job implications if we fail.

Decisions about Lindamood Bell had NOTHING to do with teachers or the union. Teachers were told to use it last year in their classrooms. They did. This year they are told not to, they didn't.

Think back, what was the LMB controversy really about in the Spring of 2008? The superintendent of VUSD, Joyce Bales and her team, mandated from the district office that all School Site Councils would be forced to spend their money on LMB. Some of the SSC's objected to TOP down commands for the disposition of what they considered to be their own site money. Those SSCs wanted to have local school site autonomy. They were angry with the last board's decision to support Joyce Bales. Now we have new board members.

This was a PARENT driven decision. It was the PARENTS who objected. It was the parents who supported a the two former PTA leaders in the school board election who pledged to give control back to local SSCs. Those two won. The did what they said they would do in their campaigns. They gave back control to local School Site Councils. This was and is SOLELY a PARENT issue.

The teachers could care less which program is used as long as it is effective because the teacher’s job depends on student learning.

LMB was a fine program. It helped many students. But from the teacher's perspective it had two problems, ONE, it was HUGELY expensive and TWO, the LMB employees made the SOLE and FINAL decision about which students should be pulled out of classrooms for extra help. Neither student test scores nor teacher's recommendation automatically qualified a student to be placed in the LMB pull out program.

There are other cheaper and equally effective programs that are on the California State Approved Reading Interventions List (Intensive Intervention). LMB is listed as a supplemental (Strategic Intervention) and is NOT on the state approved list for Intensive Intervention in reading nor is it on the Approved List for Professional Development training of classroom teachers. What is wrong with picking a cheaper program that is on those state lists?

See: http://www.vusd.k12.ca.us/Departments/BusinessServices/BAC%20Meetings/BAC%20Minutes%202-12-09.pdf

By the way what other North County district uses LMB? NONE. So all those districts are in on the scheme to make children fail to learn to read as well? Come on get real.

To have or not to have LMB has been driven first and foremost by parental decisions and those parent's desire for local school site control. Secondly by the incredible cost of LMB which FAR and AWAY exceeds in cost other remedial reading programs.

The decision to allow school sites to chose whether or not they wanted to use LMB is a good one. Some schools will use it this year if their SSCs want it. Other sites will try cheaper programs. What is the big deal? Why is any decision made the teacher's fault? We teach with what we are given.

Where do these strange folks and their weird accusations come from? Why do they hate VUSD teachers so much?