Another year another set of goals to be written by teachers and approved by administrators. Again this year our district admin is pushing S.M.A.R.T. goals. Goals that are testable. Goals that are achievable. Goals with percentages in them. Goals that can be used to dismiss teachers if student class achievement does not reach some arbitray percentages.
How can we as teachers know how well a brand new group of children will do in our class this year? How can we be expected to predict future absenteeism? Or predict which children will move into or out of our classrooms. The change of a few high achievers in or out of a class can make a huge impact on overall class progress and percentages that meet any particular goal. There are just too many variables over which we do not have control.
Remember under the provisions of our previous contract, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WRITE S.M.A.R.T. goals. Your goals are your own. No matter what pressure your site admin exerts, no teacher is required to write percentage type S.M.A.R.T. goals.
Since we have no new contract, ALL the provisions of the last contract stay in effect. The only way teachers can be required to write S.M.A.R.T. goals is if our contract changes. For the contract to change, we have to have a new contract and we do not.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
One teacher's take on Lindamood Bell
I talked to one district teacher about LMB today. Here is what she had to say (at least to the best of my abilities to take notes)
Our LMB coordinator was very nice, very hardworking but did not have a credential so the LMB program had to hire hourly teachers to actually teach the LMB concepts and then train those teachers.
The entire districts K-5 teachers were trained in LMB before school on a Buy Back day last August. Expensive kits were bought for all teachers. Teachers were supposed to go back to their classrooms and implement the program more fully. Especially in the schools and grade levels that were selected for the most help. Teachers were told to Visualize and Verbalize with the students 30 minutes a day using the LMB materials.
Teachers pushed back saying there was not enough time as it was to get through all the other materials in the core subjects without losing another 30 minutes a day. So LMB said ok do it at least 15 minutes. Teachers tried. But of course it really took longer than 15 minutes.
But really weird thing is when teachers asked about doing it this year they are told not to worry about doing it, but especially do not do it when the San Diego County DAIT team is at the school evaluating.
Is that because the program is not on the Approved List of Interventions?
Last year students were pulled by LMB coordinator at any, old time during the day and the students often missed Core Academics. The LMB hourly teachers tried to make up for it by asking the pulled out students to come in early to give them help with core academic areas they had missed in the school day. Of course some parents did not bring their kids. Besides how does a student make up the classroom time lost with the full class instruction and manipulatives for a complex elementary teaching topic like rounding numbers?
Our LMB coordinator was very nice, very hardworking but did not have a credential so the LMB program had to hire hourly teachers to actually teach the LMB concepts and then train those teachers.
The entire districts K-5 teachers were trained in LMB before school on a Buy Back day last August. Expensive kits were bought for all teachers. Teachers were supposed to go back to their classrooms and implement the program more fully. Especially in the schools and grade levels that were selected for the most help. Teachers were told to Visualize and Verbalize with the students 30 minutes a day using the LMB materials.
Teachers pushed back saying there was not enough time as it was to get through all the other materials in the core subjects without losing another 30 minutes a day. So LMB said ok do it at least 15 minutes. Teachers tried. But of course it really took longer than 15 minutes.
But really weird thing is when teachers asked about doing it this year they are told not to worry about doing it, but especially do not do it when the San Diego County DAIT team is at the school evaluating.
Is that because the program is not on the Approved List of Interventions?
Last year students were pulled by LMB coordinator at any, old time during the day and the students often missed Core Academics. The LMB hourly teachers tried to make up for it by asking the pulled out students to come in early to give them help with core academic areas they had missed in the school day. Of course some parents did not bring their kids. Besides how does a student make up the classroom time lost with the full class instruction and manipulatives for a complex elementary teaching topic like rounding numbers?
Obama speech--banned in VUSD?
Rumor One flying around the district says the first Robo call from Joyce Bales was to forbid the showing of Obama's speech at any VUSD school. Then when she got blow back from parents and principals and other rationals or so the rumor goes. She then back tracked on her first inclination and then robo called all parents saying that the speech would be heard but children could opt out.
Rumor two--several principals in our district, RBVHS is mentioned, did not show the speech to any student in the school even thought students protested.
Could either of these rumors be true? Could there really be that kind of Luddites running our district and some of our schools?
I will try to confirm and re-post. Gee who do I know at RBVHS?
Rumor two--several principals in our district, RBVHS is mentioned, did not show the speech to any student in the school even thought students protested.
Could either of these rumors be true? Could there really be that kind of Luddites running our district and some of our schools?
I will try to confirm and re-post. Gee who do I know at RBVHS?
ANTIs declare Teachers are Thugs
In the blog after the article about Lindamood Bell threats to blackmail our district in today's paper, one of the ANTI posters repeated the off made claim that teachers are thugs. Our poor ANTI friends have nothing left but lies and name calling.
As a public service I will post the ANTI name calling rant followed by my response. As usual wear eye protection and do not read an ANTI crazy charge before going to bed, as it may disturb your ability to get a good night sleep. Giving dedicated teachers do not deserve name calling.
ANTI blogger Vista Watchdog posted this: Unfortunately, those hurt the most by the politics played out by you and your Union thugs are the children. Too bad you and your Union thugs put your own personl desires and goals ahaed of the needs of the children: like REAL Education!
Gee Vista Watchdog
I expected more from you. All you have got left is name calling. Thugs, really? The average VTA member is a forty some year old middle age woman. Yeah boy, that is my image of a thug.
The VTA along with a broad coalition of parents, business people, retired folks, and the other non VTA union members in the district and in the community got together to return this district to normalcy in 1994 when we recalled your ANTI Public Education majority. We returned our district to traditional FACT based education.
But you folks did manage to "win" a few school bond issues by getting slightly more than one third of the VUSD voters confused enough to vote against our previous attempts to pass a bond. Your MINORITY prevented Prop K, Prop L, and Prop LL from passing and needed schools from being built for TWO DECADES but we finally won with Prop O. Now new PUBLIC schools have been built here in Vista. And this makes you angry enough to call names?
Do you even know what a thug is? or where the term comes from? Yeah right, the teachers all got into the profession to worship the Indian god, Kali.
As a public service I will post the ANTI name calling rant followed by my response. As usual wear eye protection and do not read an ANTI crazy charge before going to bed, as it may disturb your ability to get a good night sleep. Giving dedicated teachers do not deserve name calling.
ANTI blogger Vista Watchdog posted this: Unfortunately, those hurt the most by the politics played out by you and your Union thugs are the children. Too bad you and your Union thugs put your own personl desires and goals ahaed of the needs of the children: like REAL Education!
Gee Vista Watchdog
I expected more from you. All you have got left is name calling. Thugs, really? The average VTA member is a forty some year old middle age woman. Yeah boy, that is my image of a thug.
The VTA along with a broad coalition of parents, business people, retired folks, and the other non VTA union members in the district and in the community got together to return this district to normalcy in 1994 when we recalled your ANTI Public Education majority. We returned our district to traditional FACT based education.
But you folks did manage to "win" a few school bond issues by getting slightly more than one third of the VUSD voters confused enough to vote against our previous attempts to pass a bond. Your MINORITY prevented Prop K, Prop L, and Prop LL from passing and needed schools from being built for TWO DECADES but we finally won with Prop O. Now new PUBLIC schools have been built here in Vista. And this makes you angry enough to call names?
Do you even know what a thug is? or where the term comes from? Yeah right, the teachers all got into the profession to worship the Indian god, Kali.
ANTIs say: Teacher retirement is excessive
Dear deluded ANTI blogger here is the truth:
After 25 years as a public school teacher in California classrooms including one year as a superintendent/teacher of a two room school in a one school district, my grand total of retirement pay is $2100 a month.
There is NO district retirement pay. There never has been.
I have NO medical insurance of any kind. I do not even qualify for MediCal as California teachers of a certain age were kept out of the program.
VUSD has NO insurance benefits for any retiree except we are allowed to pay FULL price to join the VUSD medical plan until we reach 65, then we are turned loose. NO more insurance no matter how much in premiums we offer to pay. NOTHING.
There are NO other benefits.
Better marry a rich spouse if you want to retire as a teacher in California.
After 25 years as a public school teacher in California classrooms including one year as a superintendent/teacher of a two room school in a one school district, my grand total of retirement pay is $2100 a month.
There is NO district retirement pay. There never has been.
I have NO medical insurance of any kind. I do not even qualify for MediCal as California teachers of a certain age were kept out of the program.
VUSD has NO insurance benefits for any retiree except we are allowed to pay FULL price to join the VUSD medical plan until we reach 65, then we are turned loose. NO more insurance no matter how much in premiums we offer to pay. NOTHING.
There are NO other benefits.
Better marry a rich spouse if you want to retire as a teacher in California.
ANTI asserts: Gibson's son used LMB to learn to read
Below in red is an ANTI pro-Gibson post after the article in the North County Times entitled:
VISTA: School board balks at reading program
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_669d07a7-14a4-5f7d-9983-fd7f45ce7227.html?mode=story
I think it is important to get to know the enemy of public education by reading their words every once in a while.
CAUTION ANTI BILE TO FOLLOW. YOU MAY NEED EYE PROTECTION.
As usual most of the comments are from Con No More with the blarney he distributed while with VUSD and now pleasantly retired with VUSD $$$. All that aside he is incorrect in the statement that Gibson knows nothing about the success of LMB. Gibson's son used LMB to learn to read and COMPREHEND what he was reading and to this day thanks LMB for that ability. It DOES work and has been proven time and time again. On the agenda of Thursday's meeting it was stated that the DAIT team accepted LMB as a program for use in the schools which had requested its use. This is purely a union backed effort to thwart actually teaching poor and slower students from learning to succeed in all the venues necessary to become a successful student. By doing this the teachers (union) can ask for more teachers and consequently more union dues. It's as plain as the nose on one's face! More teachers, more money - forget the children! The union bought board saw that the program could succeed and have been busily concocting some method to route it out of the lineup of intervention. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Aren't you proud of yourselves!
I do not know if the LMB program acceptance by DAIT was on the school board agenda. I presume it was from this ANTI post. I was not there.
Even if it were, it does not change my statement in a previous post that teachers at schools that have not chosen LMB have been told not to use it when the DAIT team arrives.
I was given that information by a teacher in this district. This teacher like ALL teachers in the district had been trained at a Buy Back Day before school opened last year (August 2008) in the use of LindaMood Bell. Last summer she also had been given very expensive LMB materials purchased by the district. Last year she had been directed to dedicate at 30 minutes a day to the LMB skills of Verbalizing and Visualizing. When she and and another teacher asked two weeks ago about using LMB in their classrooms this year, they were told that they did not need to bother and certainly should not be using it when the DAIT team showed up.
My posted replies in the North County Times to the above ANTI attack:
So mis-lead. So full of hate. You have my sympathy.
My $2100 a month retirement comes from a state fund called STRS, not from district funds.
There are more than five elementary schools is VUSD. Has DAIT accepted the use of LMB at those schools?
LMB is NOT on the state approved list for helping students with remedial reading.
LMB is a fine program. It helps kids learn to read. The question we should ask, is it cost effective? Are there other remedial reading programs that are cheaper and just as effective programs?
Also why shouldn't the parents who ACTUALLY HAVE THEIR CHILDREN in OUR VUSD SCHOOLS who are on the School Site Councils and the teachers and administration at a site be allowed to pick a program they think is more effective?
AND
You said that one of Jim Gibson's children had used LMB to learn to read. That's great. I am so glad. Are you implying that his child used LMB at one of our fine VUSD schools?
Just one question, which VUSD school did that child, that YOU BROUGHT up, attend?
I do not want to pry or give away any secrets that should be kept but I have been told that all of Jim's children have graduated from high school so it should not be any problem naming the VUSD school his child attended, should it?
VISTA: School board balks at reading program
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_669d07a7-14a4-5f7d-9983-fd7f45ce7227.html?mode=story
I think it is important to get to know the enemy of public education by reading their words every once in a while.
CAUTION ANTI BILE TO FOLLOW. YOU MAY NEED EYE PROTECTION.
As usual most of the comments are from Con No More with the blarney he distributed while with VUSD and now pleasantly retired with VUSD $$$. All that aside he is incorrect in the statement that Gibson knows nothing about the success of LMB. Gibson's son used LMB to learn to read and COMPREHEND what he was reading and to this day thanks LMB for that ability. It DOES work and has been proven time and time again. On the agenda of Thursday's meeting it was stated that the DAIT team accepted LMB as a program for use in the schools which had requested its use. This is purely a union backed effort to thwart actually teaching poor and slower students from learning to succeed in all the venues necessary to become a successful student. By doing this the teachers (union) can ask for more teachers and consequently more union dues. It's as plain as the nose on one's face! More teachers, more money - forget the children! The union bought board saw that the program could succeed and have been busily concocting some method to route it out of the lineup of intervention. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Aren't you proud of yourselves!
I do not know if the LMB program acceptance by DAIT was on the school board agenda. I presume it was from this ANTI post. I was not there.
Even if it were, it does not change my statement in a previous post that teachers at schools that have not chosen LMB have been told not to use it when the DAIT team arrives.
I was given that information by a teacher in this district. This teacher like ALL teachers in the district had been trained at a Buy Back Day before school opened last year (August 2008) in the use of LindaMood Bell. Last summer she also had been given very expensive LMB materials purchased by the district. Last year she had been directed to dedicate at 30 minutes a day to the LMB skills of Verbalizing and Visualizing. When she and and another teacher asked two weeks ago about using LMB in their classrooms this year, they were told that they did not need to bother and certainly should not be using it when the DAIT team showed up.
My posted replies in the North County Times to the above ANTI attack:
So mis-lead. So full of hate. You have my sympathy.
My $2100 a month retirement comes from a state fund called STRS, not from district funds.
There are more than five elementary schools is VUSD. Has DAIT accepted the use of LMB at those schools?
LMB is NOT on the state approved list for helping students with remedial reading.
LMB is a fine program. It helps kids learn to read. The question we should ask, is it cost effective? Are there other remedial reading programs that are cheaper and just as effective programs?
Also why shouldn't the parents who ACTUALLY HAVE THEIR CHILDREN in OUR VUSD SCHOOLS who are on the School Site Councils and the teachers and administration at a site be allowed to pick a program they think is more effective?
AND
You said that one of Jim Gibson's children had used LMB to learn to read. That's great. I am so glad. Are you implying that his child used LMB at one of our fine VUSD schools?
Just one question, which VUSD school did that child, that YOU BROUGHT up, attend?
I do not want to pry or give away any secrets that should be kept but I have been told that all of Jim's children have graduated from high school so it should not be any problem naming the VUSD school his child attended, should it?
But LMB is a good remedial reading program
The following was my response to North County Times blogger, Lucki, who teaches LMB and insists it is a good program.
----
I am sure you are a fine teacher. LMB is also a fine program. It can be useful to help underachieving students.
BUT
When the folks who have the most to benefit from good results are the ones picking the students to be "helped" and the ones who compile the data, we should look with suspicion on the data.
Even very honest people will have an unconscious bias that will push results in their favor. There are terms for this observer bias, selection bias, allocation bias, the Hawthorne effect aka study effect and the re-interpretation effect. All of these biases and effects happen without any intent, but they do happen.
For the LMB results to be unbiased and valid, there must be control of observer, selection and allocation bias at the very least.
----
I am sure you are a fine teacher. LMB is also a fine program. It can be useful to help underachieving students.
BUT
When the folks who have the most to benefit from good results are the ones picking the students to be "helped" and the ones who compile the data, we should look with suspicion on the data.
Even very honest people will have an unconscious bias that will push results in their favor. There are terms for this observer bias, selection bias, allocation bias, the Hawthorne effect aka study effect and the re-interpretation effect. All of these biases and effects happen without any intent, but they do happen.
For the LMB results to be unbiased and valid, there must be control of observer, selection and allocation bias at the very least.
VUSD out scores La Jolla school district using LMB cherry picking techniques
Yes, we can. How? Use the same cherry picking of students to be tested that our LindaMood Bell folks use. Here is what I am told happens:
LMB consultants and LMB hired hourly teachers reserve the right to dismiss any child from their "cohesive group" who started having behavior problems at the group session. AND students who the LMB folks found they could not handle WERE DROPPED from the LMB program and sent back to the classroom.
Wouldn't it be nice if classroom teachers could pick and choose which students they wanted to teach? If VUSD teachers could cherry pick students, this district's scores would be as good as some of the more wealthy districts in the county and state.
LMB consultants and LMB hired hourly teachers reserve the right to dismiss any child from their "cohesive group" who started having behavior problems at the group session. AND students who the LMB folks found they could not handle WERE DROPPED from the LMB program and sent back to the classroom.
Wouldn't it be nice if classroom teachers could pick and choose which students they wanted to teach? If VUSD teachers could cherry pick students, this district's scores would be as good as some of the more wealthy districts in the county and state.
LindaMood Bell not on State Approved Interventions list
Further LindaMood Bell is NOT on the California Approved List of Intensive Interventions!*
Why are we spending money on this program and not on one of the other fine programs that was good enough to be approved by the state? If LMB does not meet the requirements to be on the approved list, let's get a reading program that is.
LMB is only on the strategic aka "supplemental" list of reading programs. Every program out there is considered strategic/supplemental. There is no lower category.
Why is the district spending money on something that is "less than the best"? Why does Jim Gibson think this program is so good?
Teachers have been told in our district not to be using materials from LMB in their classrooms when the county DAIT comes to evaluate their school. Why?
Is it because LMB is not an Approved Intervention?*
*See confirmation of this point about LMB in testimony by David Brashier, Director, San Diego County of Education who is VUSD DAIT liason given during the VUSD Budget Advisory Committee 2008-2009 Meeting and recorded in the minutes of that meeting found here:
http://www.vusd.k12.ca.us/Departments/BusinessServices/BAC%20Meetings/BAC%20Minutes%202-12-09.pdf
Why are we spending money on this program and not on one of the other fine programs that was good enough to be approved by the state? If LMB does not meet the requirements to be on the approved list, let's get a reading program that is.
LMB is only on the strategic aka "supplemental" list of reading programs. Every program out there is considered strategic/supplemental. There is no lower category.
Why is the district spending money on something that is "less than the best"? Why does Jim Gibson think this program is so good?
Teachers have been told in our district not to be using materials from LMB in their classrooms when the county DAIT comes to evaluate their school. Why?
Is it because LMB is not an Approved Intervention?*
*See confirmation of this point about LMB in testimony by David Brashier, Director, San Diego County of Education who is VUSD DAIT liason given during the VUSD Budget Advisory Committee 2008-2009 Meeting and recorded in the minutes of that meeting found here:
http://www.vusd.k12.ca.us/Departments/BusinessServices/BAC%20Meetings/BAC%20Minutes%202-12-09.pdf
LindaMood Bell collects data and finds that LMB is succesful. Surprise!
Next funniest part of the article is that by statistics collected and compiled by LindaMood Bell employees LMB is helping students show reading improvements. Wow that's a big surprise. Not!
Classroom teachers are NOT allowed to select students to be helped by LMB consultants. No, the LMB folks take the students of their choosing, then do further "assessments", then the LMB folks come up with a "cohesive" group of students to "help". Interestingly no behavior problems are picked. No children who have a hard time sitting still in class are picked. The lowest children are never picked. The only children picked by LMB are children who will sit quietly and who are "on the cusp" of moving to the next reading level on California Standards Test. When there are only five levels reported on CST and you can easily move students from one level to next your statistics look really good.
But the children who need help the most. The lowest children who need one on one. The child who is unfocused in a large class of students with lots of distractions but who might do better in a small group, these are the students never picked by LMB folks.
This cherry picking was INDEPENDENTLY observed by elementary teachers all over the district. Teachers at each site at first thought that the cherry picking was only at their site but when teachers from different sites got together for buy back days or at VTA meetings and talked about the program the same pattern was found.
Classroom teachers are NOT allowed to select students to be helped by LMB consultants. No, the LMB folks take the students of their choosing, then do further "assessments", then the LMB folks come up with a "cohesive" group of students to "help". Interestingly no behavior problems are picked. No children who have a hard time sitting still in class are picked. The lowest children are never picked. The only children picked by LMB are children who will sit quietly and who are "on the cusp" of moving to the next reading level on California Standards Test. When there are only five levels reported on CST and you can easily move students from one level to next your statistics look really good.
But the children who need help the most. The lowest children who need one on one. The child who is unfocused in a large class of students with lots of distractions but who might do better in a small group, these are the students never picked by LMB folks.
This cherry picking was INDEPENDENTLY observed by elementary teachers all over the district. Teachers at each site at first thought that the cherry picking was only at their site but when teachers from different sites got together for buy back days or at VTA meetings and talked about the program the same pattern was found.
Jim Gibson knows that LindaMood Bell works, Tee Hee
The following is a response to the article in the North County Times
VISTA: School board balks at reading program
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_669d07a7-14a4-5f7d-9983-fd7f45ce7227.html?mode=story
Funniest part of this article was the line "Jim Gibson said he knows the program works". Tee Hee
How would Jim know? Is he a teacher? Has he used this program to teach children? Has he ever been to a school site and asked teachers how it worked?
In fact Jim Gibson who gets PAID by the district for his "work" as a trustee and who has full family insurance coverage from the district (worth thousands of dollars) never seems to have time to actually do his job by going to the schools and finding out first hand what is happening in the classroom.
Good joke, Jim, now you "know" what works and doesn't work even though you have done nothing to find out for yourself.
The one trustee who is "too busy," according to his supporters, to visit VUSD school sites regularly like Jaka, Chunka and Herrera do is now the "expert" in what works at the school sites with our students and what does not.
VISTA: School board balks at reading program
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_669d07a7-14a4-5f7d-9983-fd7f45ce7227.html?mode=story
Funniest part of this article was the line "Jim Gibson said he knows the program works". Tee Hee
How would Jim know? Is he a teacher? Has he used this program to teach children? Has he ever been to a school site and asked teachers how it worked?
In fact Jim Gibson who gets PAID by the district for his "work" as a trustee and who has full family insurance coverage from the district (worth thousands of dollars) never seems to have time to actually do his job by going to the schools and finding out first hand what is happening in the classroom.
Good joke, Jim, now you "know" what works and doesn't work even though you have done nothing to find out for yourself.
The one trustee who is "too busy," according to his supporters, to visit VUSD school sites regularly like Jaka, Chunka and Herrera do is now the "expert" in what works at the school sites with our students and what does not.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Robo phones and fundraising--two things that should not be mixed
School robo phone used for ADS! No one listens.
How can we expect our parents to listen to our important messages about days off, new programs, outbreaks etc., etc. if the same person who makes the important vital recording for the robo phones also calls with school fund raising promos. We need our parents to pay attention to important school announcements. Many of our children lose papers sent home with them long before the parents see them. It is crucial that the robo phone calls are only made for matter of vital importance or at least use a different person to make the fund raising calls.
How can we expect our parents to listen to our important messages about days off, new programs, outbreaks etc., etc. if the same person who makes the important vital recording for the robo phones also calls with school fund raising promos. We need our parents to pay attention to important school announcements. Many of our children lose papers sent home with them long before the parents see them. It is crucial that the robo phone calls are only made for matter of vital importance or at least use a different person to make the fund raising calls.
Elementary Classroom control trick--one, two, three
New Trick for easier classroom control for elementary
Many elementary teachers are using a simple rhyme to regain their pupil’s attention. We all know that even with our good students and classes, there are times when outside distraction—a visitor, a message from the office, a PA “important” announcement can make our students lose focus. We all need “tricks” to get them back. Here is one.
The teachers says, “one, two, three; eyes on me” and train students to respond in unison, “one, two; eyes on you”. This may sound a bit hokey but it seems to work with K-5 and may work in junior high. In one Vista elementary school, virtually all K-5 teachers use this simple trick. The kids all know it and respond well. Suddenly they are focused on the teacher again.
Many elementary teachers are using a simple rhyme to regain their pupil’s attention. We all know that even with our good students and classes, there are times when outside distraction—a visitor, a message from the office, a PA “important” announcement can make our students lose focus. We all need “tricks” to get them back. Here is one.
The teachers says, “one, two, three; eyes on me” and train students to respond in unison, “one, two; eyes on you”. This may sound a bit hokey but it seems to work with K-5 and may work in junior high. In one Vista elementary school, virtually all K-5 teachers use this simple trick. The kids all know it and respond well. Suddenly they are focused on the teacher again.
Technology Titanic and no life rafts, just more Bales busy work
Technology Titanic
Overwhelmed with new technology the district has “given”, some teachers feel they are on the Titanic and going down fast. But all the district is offering is more Bales busy work. Now we have literacy coaches who want to “facilitate” meeting grade level meetings by taking over the meeting for their “make work” exercises, not to mention “homework” assignments they put in our boxes. The ship is going down and instead of handing us life rafts the district gives us “interesting” papers on ice bergs to read as the water rises.
Who is not overwhelmed by having to learn new programs and new applications without any inservice time and no planning time to learn and implement all the craziness. How many hours are we to spend at school? Even the best elementary teachers are forced to give up at least two hours a day for free to the district above and beyond their seven and a half hours of paid times. Are we supposed to sleep at school, too? What more can the Bales and the district office demand of us?
District to teachers—“Shame on you teachers for thinking that you should have any time at home with your family.”
Who at your school is the unpaid technology person? You know that one person who knows everything about computers and that everyone else goes to after school. He or she has papers to grade and lessons to prepare but instead they are stuck helping all the other staff members for free. No pay from the district. No thanks by the district. Use 'em up, throw them away and never never do anything to help teachers be more effective in the classroom or give them time to prepare or extra pay for all their extra work.
Why doesn’t the district HIRE a technology guru?Or at least finance inservices on the new technology? AND why weren't these inservices given BEFORE school started in August?
Why is there no compensation for the poor guy or gal who has a multitude of other responsibilities who must try to explain how “new” stuff works to the rest of us? What happens at a school where there is NO ONE to help the less computer/technology savvy teachers? Where in our job description is it written hours of free unpaid time for figuring out complicated, complex and uncooperative computer technology is expected from every teacher?
New stupid Bales requirement--New technology like grade pro or some other way to get grades on report cards just so the printing “looks neat”. RIDICULOUS!!!!
Who compensates teachers for the time to learn and practice the program? Who pays them for the extra time to transfer grades?
New math like envision math has computer components and online components comes with a stack of CD roms that all have to be installed. Good luck with that. Installing CDs on our computers is like getting a camel through the eye of the needle gate in the Jerusalem wall. Impossible. But who at the district Taj Mahal on the hill cares about or even VISITS a site? What are district admins AFRAID to dirty their pretty little shoes by showing up at school site and talking with real teachers directly?
“New” copy machines that are broken down or jamming 70% of the time. Who can spend their entire recess and lunch time waiting in line for a chance to get to a machine that will not work when your turn comes? Some teachers going to Kinko’s after their work day and spending twenty thirty dollars of their own to make homework packets for their children.
All the poor teachers in their rooms hours and hours after school. One custodian on a giant campus is the only person who might hear them if a “bad guy” shows up. How safe is it for the district to demand teachers learn and put into practice all these programs during AFTER school hours? How fair is it?
Overwhelmed with new technology the district has “given”, some teachers feel they are on the Titanic and going down fast. But all the district is offering is more Bales busy work. Now we have literacy coaches who want to “facilitate” meeting grade level meetings by taking over the meeting for their “make work” exercises, not to mention “homework” assignments they put in our boxes. The ship is going down and instead of handing us life rafts the district gives us “interesting” papers on ice bergs to read as the water rises.
Who is not overwhelmed by having to learn new programs and new applications without any inservice time and no planning time to learn and implement all the craziness. How many hours are we to spend at school? Even the best elementary teachers are forced to give up at least two hours a day for free to the district above and beyond their seven and a half hours of paid times. Are we supposed to sleep at school, too? What more can the Bales and the district office demand of us?
District to teachers—“Shame on you teachers for thinking that you should have any time at home with your family.”
Who at your school is the unpaid technology person? You know that one person who knows everything about computers and that everyone else goes to after school. He or she has papers to grade and lessons to prepare but instead they are stuck helping all the other staff members for free. No pay from the district. No thanks by the district. Use 'em up, throw them away and never never do anything to help teachers be more effective in the classroom or give them time to prepare or extra pay for all their extra work.
Why doesn’t the district HIRE a technology guru?Or at least finance inservices on the new technology? AND why weren't these inservices given BEFORE school started in August?
Why is there no compensation for the poor guy or gal who has a multitude of other responsibilities who must try to explain how “new” stuff works to the rest of us? What happens at a school where there is NO ONE to help the less computer/technology savvy teachers? Where in our job description is it written hours of free unpaid time for figuring out complicated, complex and uncooperative computer technology is expected from every teacher?
New stupid Bales requirement--New technology like grade pro or some other way to get grades on report cards just so the printing “looks neat”. RIDICULOUS!!!!
Who compensates teachers for the time to learn and practice the program? Who pays them for the extra time to transfer grades?
New math like envision math has computer components and online components comes with a stack of CD roms that all have to be installed. Good luck with that. Installing CDs on our computers is like getting a camel through the eye of the needle gate in the Jerusalem wall. Impossible. But who at the district Taj Mahal on the hill cares about or even VISITS a site? What are district admins AFRAID to dirty their pretty little shoes by showing up at school site and talking with real teachers directly?
“New” copy machines that are broken down or jamming 70% of the time. Who can spend their entire recess and lunch time waiting in line for a chance to get to a machine that will not work when your turn comes? Some teachers going to Kinko’s after their work day and spending twenty thirty dollars of their own to make homework packets for their children.
All the poor teachers in their rooms hours and hours after school. One custodian on a giant campus is the only person who might hear them if a “bad guy” shows up. How safe is it for the district to demand teachers learn and put into practice all these programs during AFTER school hours? How fair is it?
Parents and students have more control than any group of employees
Parents and students have more power than any union in any district.
(1)The parents can join and be active in the PTA. The PTA wields tremendous power at any site. No principal is going to ignore what the PTA wants. No teacher may dare ignore a principal without fear of dismissal for cause--insubordination.
(2)Any parent can have their child moved into another teachers classroom at the school.
(3)Any parent can also chose to take their child to another public school in the district, a magnet school, or to a charter school (charters operate almost like a separate district), or even get an inter district transfer to another school district.
(4) Every child is worth thousands of dollars in state funds. No district can ignore parents who might take their children out of district schools.
In VUSD VTA has been just one small part in our community's long struggle against extremist who do not support public education. The teachers and the ever changing union leadership have given hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours after a long hard day of work to getting a school bond passed and electing board members who respect FACT based education.
VUSD is the better for VTA and its brave and courageous members.
(1)The parents can join and be active in the PTA. The PTA wields tremendous power at any site. No principal is going to ignore what the PTA wants. No teacher may dare ignore a principal without fear of dismissal for cause--insubordination.
(2)Any parent can have their child moved into another teachers classroom at the school.
(3)Any parent can also chose to take their child to another public school in the district, a magnet school, or to a charter school (charters operate almost like a separate district), or even get an inter district transfer to another school district.
(4) Every child is worth thousands of dollars in state funds. No district can ignore parents who might take their children out of district schools.
In VUSD VTA has been just one small part in our community's long struggle against extremist who do not support public education. The teachers and the ever changing union leadership have given hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours after a long hard day of work to getting a school bond passed and electing board members who respect FACT based education.
VUSD is the better for VTA and its brave and courageous members.
Who really took over VUSD?
There was only one take over of VUSD and that was done in 1992 by a group of ANTI public education folks who did not believe in FACT based science, history or sex education. One of their members once told me, "facts once given can never be taken back"
As Plain Truth should know only after the take over by the extremist ANTIs did the community of VUSD including the two different school labor unions get involved with politics. The entire community including business leaders, students, taxpayers without children, Realtors joined in the recall of the ideologue fanatics in 1994.
What happened in 1994 was not a take over, it was a return to normal stopping the reign of error of the 92-94 ANTI board majority. In that two years of ANTI rule our LOCAL VUSD district made the front pages of NATIONAL news papers including the New York Times, LATimes and San Francisco Chronicle. Since the recall, VUSD had not made the front pages, back or middle pages of any national paper.
As Plain Truth should know only after the take over by the extremist ANTIs did the community of VUSD including the two different school labor unions get involved with politics. The entire community including business leaders, students, taxpayers without children, Realtors joined in the recall of the ideologue fanatics in 1994.
What happened in 1994 was not a take over, it was a return to normal stopping the reign of error of the 92-94 ANTI board majority. In that two years of ANTI rule our LOCAL VUSD district made the front pages of NATIONAL news papers including the New York Times, LATimes and San Francisco Chronicle. Since the recall, VUSD had not made the front pages, back or middle pages of any national paper.
Gibson after wasting millions thinks a few thousand more no problem
Gibson has real nerve talking about wasting tax payer money.
Jim Gibson's opposition to a cheap, fully graded, and level piece of land for our third VUSD high school forced the district to go to the runner up location on Melrose and Highway 76. The purchase of the land alone at the secondary location cost 17 MILLION DOLLARS MORE! Seventeen million! The secondary location was also very hilly. It had never been graded. Millions more had to be spent to grade and level the land. The secondary site was located in the City of Oceanside instead of Vista which resulted in petty political hassles and a huge increase in permit, grading fees, street construction costs.
By my very conservative count, Jim Gibson intransigence cost VUSD taxpayers at least 40 million dollars.
What should have been a 50 to 60 million dollar high school built five years ago on the cheap, level, fully graded, Kawano property is now close to 100 million dollars and still not open.
Thanks a lot. Jim. Keep looking for that speck in the other guy's eye while ignoring the moot in yours.
Jim Gibson's opposition to a cheap, fully graded, and level piece of land for our third VUSD high school forced the district to go to the runner up location on Melrose and Highway 76. The purchase of the land alone at the secondary location cost 17 MILLION DOLLARS MORE! Seventeen million! The secondary location was also very hilly. It had never been graded. Millions more had to be spent to grade and level the land. The secondary site was located in the City of Oceanside instead of Vista which resulted in petty political hassles and a huge increase in permit, grading fees, street construction costs.
By my very conservative count, Jim Gibson intransigence cost VUSD taxpayers at least 40 million dollars.
What should have been a 50 to 60 million dollar high school built five years ago on the cheap, level, fully graded, Kawano property is now close to 100 million dollars and still not open.
Thanks a lot. Jim. Keep looking for that speck in the other guy's eye while ignoring the moot in yours.
VUSD contract lawyer not expensive enough, Gibson wants to spend more
VUSD like all school districts in the State of California has a contract with a legal representative called the County Counsel. This contract is not free. It cost the district money. Gibson wants the district to go outside to hire someone else? What is it about taxpayer money and Jim Gibson? Does Jim think taxpayer money is his to waste?
When the district has a paid legal adviser, you use the paid adviser.
Haven't you wasted enough taxpayer money already Jim? Considering the waste of 40 million dollar you cost the district for the building of the third high school, aren't you embarrassed to asking for more to be wasted?
By the way the contract with the VTA president has already passed legal muster with previous legal counsels. These kinds of contracts are legal throughout California and have been for decades. So why bring it up? Oh yeah next year is election year for Jimmy.
Also note that if the VUSD board is forced to ask our cheaper, already contracted, legal counsel to re-plow the same ground, there will be a small additional fee for that as well. County Counsel time is not free, but at least it is not as outrageously expensive as Jim Gibson "full employment for outside lawyers demand" would be.
When the district has a paid legal adviser, you use the paid adviser.
Haven't you wasted enough taxpayer money already Jim? Considering the waste of 40 million dollar you cost the district for the building of the third high school, aren't you embarrassed to asking for more to be wasted?
By the way the contract with the VTA president has already passed legal muster with previous legal counsels. These kinds of contracts are legal throughout California and have been for decades. So why bring it up? Oh yeah next year is election year for Jimmy.
Also note that if the VUSD board is forced to ask our cheaper, already contracted, legal counsel to re-plow the same ground, there will be a small additional fee for that as well. County Counsel time is not free, but at least it is not as outrageously expensive as Jim Gibson "full employment for outside lawyers demand" would be.
Gibson attacks VTA, lies about legality
Jim Gibson is seeing the specter of next year's election looming. He knows he is in big trouble.
The most recent school board election resulted in a clean sweeping away of all of his ANTI public education allies by thousands of votes. Now he sees next year's election looming. Suddenly he faces being retired from the school board like Guffanti was. He knows that his actions on the board have cost taxpayers tens of million of dollars.
His only hope for re-election is to get his name in the headlines and create a phony scandal. If he runs on his record, he loses. If he runs an ANTI public education campaign, he loses. If he tells people his political agenda, he loses. No wonder he is trying this new desperate attack. he is now calling the VTA's president's salary 'illegal'. How strange a board member for over a decade like Jimmy does not know what is legal and not legal. He should know that the policy that permits VUSD to pay the VTA's president salary differential has been passed all legal reviews in all school districts in California for at least two decades. Not to worry about all that precedent, Jimmy doesn't care about facts, only about getting elected again. If lies and smears is all you have, then if you are Jimmy you use them and use them early and often.
Gibson thought the ANTIs had the strongest slate of ANTI public education candidates ever in November 2008--a incumbent medical doctor, a college professor, and an Hispanic mom. But they did not. All of the ANTI candidate lost and lost BIG! By thousands of votes! Jim has lived in terror ever since. You see Jimmy's life for the last twenty years has been all about getting elected to public office using the VUSD board position as a stepping stone to better and bigger things. So far it has not worked well. He lost the election for Temecula State Assembly person. He lost the election in 2008 for Oceanside City Council. He also lost his chance to be appointed to Oceanside City Council when there was a vacancy a few years back. He worked the other four council members hard but they ignored him. If he now loses his stepping stone on VUSD board, how will poor Jimmy get an even better elected position?
So now you understand Gibson desperate acts attacking a legal policy that actually helps the district.
Here is the article telling about last night's VUSD Board Meeting and little Jimmy's bid for attention:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_c9e6be3a-c966-5c67-9dbd-d6744ed46385.html?mode=story
VISTA: School board trustee wants review of union chief's pay
Gibson asks for lawyers to examine salary issue
A school trustee in Vista is questioning whether the Vista Unified School District is illegally using public funds by paying the salary of a full-time teachers-union president, while the union reimburses the district for a less-experienced, lesser-paid teacher to assume her classroom duties.
(I am betting the VTA reimburses the district for a full time equivalent position. Who the district hires is up to the district. The VTA president has no right to her old teaching job or classroom when her term is up. Lot's of other teacher slots are held open in case a teacher returns form illnesses, surgery, or a district office job. It is routine to hire temporary teacher replacement. Temporary does not mean unqualified or inexperienced. It just mean that they are taking the place of someone else.)
Jim Gibson, a frequent critic of the union, is proposing that the district ask lawyers to examine the legality of the arrangement that is part of the district's contract with the Vista Teachers Association.
(Why and outside EXPENSIVE lawyer when the district already has a contract for legal representation from the San Diego County Counsel? Does Gibson think taxpayer money is his to waste?)
The contract calls for the district to pay the salary of the union president ---- which since 2005 has been veteran teacher Jan O'Reilly ---- while the union pays for a replacement teacher. But because the replacement is usually a temporary teacher with a lower salary, there's a discrepancy between the district's expenses and the union's reimbursement.
For example, during the last six years, the district has paid $413,202 ---- nearly $70,000 a year ---- for the union president's salary, while the teachers association has paid $266,923 ---- nearly $45,000 a year ---- to hire replacements, district officials have said.
(What is the problem here? One teacher is out of the classroom, another FULLY CREDENTIALED teacher replaces her and the VTA pays it. Long time teachers get more pay then more recent hires. VTA presidents happen to mostly be long time teachers. So what is jimmy babbling about? Ridiculous complaint.)
Read the rest of the article Jimmy got his buddies in charge of the North County Times to "suggest" that poor Stacey Brandt write at the URL above.
The most recent school board election resulted in a clean sweeping away of all of his ANTI public education allies by thousands of votes. Now he sees next year's election looming. Suddenly he faces being retired from the school board like Guffanti was. He knows that his actions on the board have cost taxpayers tens of million of dollars.
His only hope for re-election is to get his name in the headlines and create a phony scandal. If he runs on his record, he loses. If he runs an ANTI public education campaign, he loses. If he tells people his political agenda, he loses. No wonder he is trying this new desperate attack. he is now calling the VTA's president's salary 'illegal'. How strange a board member for over a decade like Jimmy does not know what is legal and not legal. He should know that the policy that permits VUSD to pay the VTA's president salary differential has been passed all legal reviews in all school districts in California for at least two decades. Not to worry about all that precedent, Jimmy doesn't care about facts, only about getting elected again. If lies and smears is all you have, then if you are Jimmy you use them and use them early and often.
Gibson thought the ANTIs had the strongest slate of ANTI public education candidates ever in November 2008--a incumbent medical doctor, a college professor, and an Hispanic mom. But they did not. All of the ANTI candidate lost and lost BIG! By thousands of votes! Jim has lived in terror ever since. You see Jimmy's life for the last twenty years has been all about getting elected to public office using the VUSD board position as a stepping stone to better and bigger things. So far it has not worked well. He lost the election for Temecula State Assembly person. He lost the election in 2008 for Oceanside City Council. He also lost his chance to be appointed to Oceanside City Council when there was a vacancy a few years back. He worked the other four council members hard but they ignored him. If he now loses his stepping stone on VUSD board, how will poor Jimmy get an even better elected position?
So now you understand Gibson desperate acts attacking a legal policy that actually helps the district.
Here is the article telling about last night's VUSD Board Meeting and little Jimmy's bid for attention:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_c9e6be3a-c966-5c67-9dbd-d6744ed46385.html?mode=story
VISTA: School board trustee wants review of union chief's pay
Gibson asks for lawyers to examine salary issue
A school trustee in Vista is questioning whether the Vista Unified School District is illegally using public funds by paying the salary of a full-time teachers-union president, while the union reimburses the district for a less-experienced, lesser-paid teacher to assume her classroom duties.
(I am betting the VTA reimburses the district for a full time equivalent position. Who the district hires is up to the district. The VTA president has no right to her old teaching job or classroom when her term is up. Lot's of other teacher slots are held open in case a teacher returns form illnesses, surgery, or a district office job. It is routine to hire temporary teacher replacement. Temporary does not mean unqualified or inexperienced. It just mean that they are taking the place of someone else.)
Jim Gibson, a frequent critic of the union, is proposing that the district ask lawyers to examine the legality of the arrangement that is part of the district's contract with the Vista Teachers Association.
(Why and outside EXPENSIVE lawyer when the district already has a contract for legal representation from the San Diego County Counsel? Does Gibson think taxpayer money is his to waste?)
The contract calls for the district to pay the salary of the union president ---- which since 2005 has been veteran teacher Jan O'Reilly ---- while the union pays for a replacement teacher. But because the replacement is usually a temporary teacher with a lower salary, there's a discrepancy between the district's expenses and the union's reimbursement.
For example, during the last six years, the district has paid $413,202 ---- nearly $70,000 a year ---- for the union president's salary, while the teachers association has paid $266,923 ---- nearly $45,000 a year ---- to hire replacements, district officials have said.
(What is the problem here? One teacher is out of the classroom, another FULLY CREDENTIALED teacher replaces her and the VTA pays it. Long time teachers get more pay then more recent hires. VTA presidents happen to mostly be long time teachers. So what is jimmy babbling about? Ridiculous complaint.)
Read the rest of the article Jimmy got his buddies in charge of the North County Times to "suggest" that poor Stacey Brandt write at the URL above.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Guffanti's job = locum tenens
It does not seem too terribly important now, but I think I have finally figured out what Stephen Guffanti's job was.
His supporters called it "substitute doctor". We were left wondering why he couldn't hold down a job. First he was an emergency room doctor up on the central coast than a workers comp doctor in San Marcos, etc. It turns out that there is a term for what he was doing. Our physician friends call it locum tenens, standing in the place of another.
None of this matters now that he is thankfully off our board and no longer damaging our children's education or our children's chances to be in fully functioning, uncrowded, new schools. We should all be patting ourselves on the back for our important job of retiring Guffanti. It was a job well done. Let's hope no one else like Guffanti is ever elected again.
We have only one ANTI public education member on our board left, Jim Gibson. With a bit of good luck we can rid ourselves of him a year and two months from now. In the meantime, Gibson by himself, can no longer damage our abilities to purchase land and build new schools.
What a stupid California law that requires four out of five trustees to acquire property by eminent domain!
When Guffanti was there to vote with Gibson, the two of them were able to block the purchase of the cheap, level, fully graded fifty acre site behind Strawberry Hill. The next best site was the hilly, 18 times more expensive land at Melrose and Highway 76.
Gibson and Guffanti cost VUSD taxpayers at least forty million dollars if we count increased grading costs, increased construction costs, permit problems, at the Melrose site that were not problems at the CHEAP Strawberry Hill site.
Let's all be glad Guffanti is gone and Gibson can harm us no more.
Here is the article describing what a locum tenens physician does:
Read the article in its entirety at the URL below:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/707979?src=mp&spon=38&uac=86387MV
Here are the first few paragraphs:
From Medscape Family Medicine > Physicians Are Talking About...
Doctors for Hire -- The New Case for Locum Tenens
Nancy R. Terry
Published: 09/01/2009
Plagued by issues of managed care, mounting paperwork, malpractice costs, and diminishing reimbursements, a percentage of physicians are stepping away from traditional practices to explore alternative career options. Some have chosen to hang out a new shingle: doctor for hire.
In previous years, locum tenens (a Latin phrase meaning "to stand in another's place") positions were typically filled by early career and semiretired physicians, but recently more midcareer physicians are choosing temporary assignments. A 2008 survey of 12,000 doctors, most of them primary care physicians, reported that 7.5% expected to work as locums in the next 3 years.[1] In 2009, the number of physicians working as locums is anticipated to increase by 16% over that of 2008, according to a report by the Braff Group, a healthcare merger and acquisitions company.[2]
For some physicians, working as a locum is a bridge between full-time assignments or a way to experience how medicine is practiced in various parts of the country before choosing to move to one area. For others, locum tenens work is a way to supplement retirement savings hit hard by the recession. Yet, for a growing number of physicians, locum tenens work is their preferred form of medical practice.
Contributors to Medscape's Physician Connect (MPC), an all-physician discussion board, talk about the pros and cons of temporary medical work and what to expect when doctors take their skills on the road.
One MPC contributor turned to locum tenens work because he became disenchanted with the medical politics he encountered in his hospital position. "As an independent, I'm attended a significantly greater degree of freedom to concentrate on patient care."
For an obstetrician/gynecologist, locum tenens work offers greater job satisfaction. "I've spent a lot of time in the Midwest, mostly at small hospitals. The assignments help me remember why I chose to be a physician."Locum tenens provides a flexibility of schedule and an opportunity to travel that some physicians find appealing. One MPC contributor comments that 6 months out of the year he works a steady job and the other 6 months he travels the world. "The pay is far less for the latter, but the life experience outweighs it."
"The travel to and from your home town becomes a drag after a while," comments a critical care physician, "especially if you have a family or a significant other." The obstetrician/gynecologist agrees that being away from her husband can be trying, but adds, "The flip side is we continue to feel like newlyweds."
READ THE REST AT THE WEB ADDRESS FOUND ABOVE.
His supporters called it "substitute doctor". We were left wondering why he couldn't hold down a job. First he was an emergency room doctor up on the central coast than a workers comp doctor in San Marcos, etc. It turns out that there is a term for what he was doing. Our physician friends call it locum tenens, standing in the place of another.
None of this matters now that he is thankfully off our board and no longer damaging our children's education or our children's chances to be in fully functioning, uncrowded, new schools. We should all be patting ourselves on the back for our important job of retiring Guffanti. It was a job well done. Let's hope no one else like Guffanti is ever elected again.
We have only one ANTI public education member on our board left, Jim Gibson. With a bit of good luck we can rid ourselves of him a year and two months from now. In the meantime, Gibson by himself, can no longer damage our abilities to purchase land and build new schools.
What a stupid California law that requires four out of five trustees to acquire property by eminent domain!
When Guffanti was there to vote with Gibson, the two of them were able to block the purchase of the cheap, level, fully graded fifty acre site behind Strawberry Hill. The next best site was the hilly, 18 times more expensive land at Melrose and Highway 76.
Gibson and Guffanti cost VUSD taxpayers at least forty million dollars if we count increased grading costs, increased construction costs, permit problems, at the Melrose site that were not problems at the CHEAP Strawberry Hill site.
Let's all be glad Guffanti is gone and Gibson can harm us no more.
Here is the article describing what a locum tenens physician does:
Read the article in its entirety at the URL below:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/707979?src=mp&spon=38&uac=86387MV
Here are the first few paragraphs:
From Medscape Family Medicine > Physicians Are Talking About...
Doctors for Hire -- The New Case for Locum Tenens
Nancy R. Terry
Published: 09/01/2009
Plagued by issues of managed care, mounting paperwork, malpractice costs, and diminishing reimbursements, a percentage of physicians are stepping away from traditional practices to explore alternative career options. Some have chosen to hang out a new shingle: doctor for hire.
In previous years, locum tenens (a Latin phrase meaning "to stand in another's place") positions were typically filled by early career and semiretired physicians, but recently more midcareer physicians are choosing temporary assignments. A 2008 survey of 12,000 doctors, most of them primary care physicians, reported that 7.5% expected to work as locums in the next 3 years.[1] In 2009, the number of physicians working as locums is anticipated to increase by 16% over that of 2008, according to a report by the Braff Group, a healthcare merger and acquisitions company.[2]
For some physicians, working as a locum is a bridge between full-time assignments or a way to experience how medicine is practiced in various parts of the country before choosing to move to one area. For others, locum tenens work is a way to supplement retirement savings hit hard by the recession. Yet, for a growing number of physicians, locum tenens work is their preferred form of medical practice.
Contributors to Medscape's Physician Connect (MPC), an all-physician discussion board, talk about the pros and cons of temporary medical work and what to expect when doctors take their skills on the road.
One MPC contributor turned to locum tenens work because he became disenchanted with the medical politics he encountered in his hospital position. "As an independent, I'm attended a significantly greater degree of freedom to concentrate on patient care."
For an obstetrician/gynecologist, locum tenens work offers greater job satisfaction. "I've spent a lot of time in the Midwest, mostly at small hospitals. The assignments help me remember why I chose to be a physician."Locum tenens provides a flexibility of schedule and an opportunity to travel that some physicians find appealing. One MPC contributor comments that 6 months out of the year he works a steady job and the other 6 months he travels the world. "The pay is far less for the latter, but the life experience outweighs it."
"The travel to and from your home town becomes a drag after a while," comments a critical care physician, "especially if you have a family or a significant other." The obstetrician/gynecologist agrees that being away from her husband can be trying, but adds, "The flip side is we continue to feel like newlyweds."
READ THE REST AT THE WEB ADDRESS FOUND ABOVE.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Surge in Homeless Pupils Strains Schools
As No Child Left Behind becomes ever more onerous to students and teachers and the penalties ever more draconian, we in VUSD and across the country struggle with more and more students who have no security at home. No place of their own to study in. No assurance that when they go home from school they will be living in the same place as when they left in the morning. This great uncertainty intrudes constantly on the child's thoughts making listening and learning in schools ever more difficult.
Read more in the New York Times. Here is the first couple of paragraphs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/education/06homeless.html?_r=1&hpw
Surge in Homeless Pupils Strains Schools
By ERIK ECKHOLM September 6, 2009 New York Times
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — In the small trailer her family rented over the summer, 9-year-old Charity Crowell picked out the green and purple outfit she would wear on the first day of school. She vowed to try harder and bring her grades back up from the C’s she got last spring — a dismal semester when her parents lost their jobs and car and the family was evicted and migrated through friends’ houses and a motel.
Charity is one child in a national surge of homeless schoolchildren that is driven by relentless unemployment and foreclosures. The rise, to more than one million students without stable housing by last spring, has tested budget-battered school districts as they try to carry out their responsibilities — and the federal mandate — to salvage education for children whose lives are filled with insecurity and turmoil.
Read more in the New York Times. Here is the first couple of paragraphs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/education/06homeless.html?_r=1&hpw
Surge in Homeless Pupils Strains Schools
By ERIK ECKHOLM September 6, 2009 New York Times
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — In the small trailer her family rented over the summer, 9-year-old Charity Crowell picked out the green and purple outfit she would wear on the first day of school. She vowed to try harder and bring her grades back up from the C’s she got last spring — a dismal semester when her parents lost their jobs and car and the family was evicted and migrated through friends’ houses and a motel.
Charity is one child in a national surge of homeless schoolchildren that is driven by relentless unemployment and foreclosures. The rise, to more than one million students without stable housing by last spring, has tested budget-battered school districts as they try to carry out their responsibilities — and the federal mandate — to salvage education for children whose lives are filled with insecurity and turmoil.
ANTI LIE: VTA stole district insurance funds
ANTI North County Times blogger "Plain Truth" posted on August 25, 2009, 11:33 am after the Richard Kirk attack piece this lie or paranoid fantasy, “within a few years after taking control of the board the union plundered the insurance premiums.”
Gee Plain Truth where is the truth? Plundered the insurance premiums? Oh really? On what planet paranoid is that possible? Insurance premiums go to insurance companies.
If you mean the teachers had health insurance that cost too much? Probably. Because we all think insurance costs too much.
For much of the 1990s we had only two insurance companies to negotiate with. They quoted very similar rates to our umbrella trust/insurance company called the South Counties Employer Employee Trust. This was the trust that our district obtained all it benefits through—medical, dental, optical, life insurance. A trust is kind of like a Co-op that is being talked about now in Congress by the Republicans. VUSD through our trust, SCEET, really had little choice about what we paid for insurance because of the lack of competition. But all insurance premiums went to our insurance companies or we would not have had coverage and we did have coverage.
Also you should know that the greater the insurance premium we were charged by the monopolistic FOR PROFIT private insurance companies, the lower the teacher pay became. Why, you ask?
Because in the mid 1980’s Pete McHugh one of our district assistant superintendents decreed that all contract negotiations would be base on TOTAL COMPENSATION not just on salary.
Total compensation included the massive cost increases in our insurance coverage. These massive increased costs from the FOR PROFIT insurance carriers had to be deducted from teacher salary under the TOTAL COMPENSATION contract negotiation system forced on the VTA. Before that total compensation negotiations, insurance coverage was always a given--a right that every worker had from his or her employer. At that time only salaries were included in negotiations.
Gee Plain Truth where is the truth? Plundered the insurance premiums? Oh really? On what planet paranoid is that possible? Insurance premiums go to insurance companies.
If you mean the teachers had health insurance that cost too much? Probably. Because we all think insurance costs too much.
For much of the 1990s we had only two insurance companies to negotiate with. They quoted very similar rates to our umbrella trust/insurance company called the South Counties Employer Employee Trust. This was the trust that our district obtained all it benefits through—medical, dental, optical, life insurance. A trust is kind of like a Co-op that is being talked about now in Congress by the Republicans. VUSD through our trust, SCEET, really had little choice about what we paid for insurance because of the lack of competition. But all insurance premiums went to our insurance companies or we would not have had coverage and we did have coverage.
Also you should know that the greater the insurance premium we were charged by the monopolistic FOR PROFIT private insurance companies, the lower the teacher pay became. Why, you ask?
Because in the mid 1980’s Pete McHugh one of our district assistant superintendents decreed that all contract negotiations would be base on TOTAL COMPENSATION not just on salary.
Total compensation included the massive cost increases in our insurance coverage. These massive increased costs from the FOR PROFIT insurance carriers had to be deducted from teacher salary under the TOTAL COMPENSATION contract negotiation system forced on the VTA. Before that total compensation negotiations, insurance coverage was always a given--a right that every worker had from his or her employer. At that time only salaries were included in negotiations.
Guffanti Built Schools in VUSD. Oh really?
The blogger who calls himself Plain Truth blogged the following plain lie on the North County Times blog following the article about the Magnet High School opening temporarily in free classrooms at Washington Middle School.
VISTA:Magnet high school opens at temporary site.
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_b0098020-4818-5d12-80ab-d35e127d11da.html
Plain Truth repeated one of Guffanti's greatest lies. The lie that he somehow should have credit for schools funded and built while he sat on the school board doing all that he could to sabotage funding for these schools.
The lie "nearly half the schools in the district were built while Guffanti was on the board" Tee, Hee.
Just which schools did Guffanti lift one finger to help get funded or built?
In my life time men landed on the moon, does that make me an astronaut?
You do know that Rancho Buena Vista High School was built with developer fees--money charged per house built inside VUSD? But did you know that Guffanti voted against raising our VUSD developer fees to the California state cap? He did not want our VUSD "government" schools to get the full amount possible. Sadly with not much empty land left in VUSD, developer fee money is a tiny fraction of what it was, too bad we did not capture all the money when it was possible, now sadly it is too late.
I remember he was on the board for the construction of Sierra Vista High School-built using money from a consortium of surrounding school districts. VUSD contribution was the land. The other districts provided the funds. Special Needs students from all the North County districts that funded the construction attend that school. What did exactly did Guffanti do?
Maybe he should get credit for the tiny mismanged VLACS charter school that he supported so vociferously from his seat on the school board. Guffanti was a board member of the VLACS charter AND a sitting VUSD school board member AT THE SAME TIME. Can you say conflict of interest?
Wait ,Wait it gets better. According to a PTA source, Guffanti sold VLACS his self published Rocket Phonics program to use as their reading program while he was a BOARD member of VLACS. Hmm could this be a bit of a criminal conflict of interest that benefitted him financially? I am not a lawyer but perhaps.
Interesting to note that VLACS was first closed after being found in violation of The City of Vista Building Code. There were numerous code violations in the 'classrooms' that Guffanti helped pick out for students to attend. The only charter in Vista that was ever closed by the City of Vista for code violation.
Finally financial irregularities and mismanagement ended VLACS. Guffanti's helping VLACS, a tiny charter school with only a few hundred students at its largest, really was a big help with the terrible overcrowding that VUSD suffered. NOT!
Prop O schools were all built while Guffanti was on the school board. He lifted not one finger to help getting the bond passed. He made not one phone call. He knocked on no doors. He did not send one letter to the editor to the newspaper in favor of Prop O. Nor did he write one forum piece in favor of the Proposition. The only forum piece he did write concerning the vote for placing Prop O on the ballot was in favor of REDUCING the size of Prop O which would have greatly REDUCED the number of schools built. In addition after Prop O passed, he forced the district to spend tens of thousands on looking for additional sites for the new high school. Worse Guffanti's opposition to the cheap level already graded fifty acre Kawano site resulted in the district spending tens of millions more for the next best site, a far less centrally located, completely ungraded, hilly piece of land on Melrose.
VISTA:Magnet high school opens at temporary site.
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_b0098020-4818-5d12-80ab-d35e127d11da.html
Plain Truth repeated one of Guffanti's greatest lies. The lie that he somehow should have credit for schools funded and built while he sat on the school board doing all that he could to sabotage funding for these schools.
The lie "nearly half the schools in the district were built while Guffanti was on the board" Tee, Hee.
Just which schools did Guffanti lift one finger to help get funded or built?
In my life time men landed on the moon, does that make me an astronaut?
You do know that Rancho Buena Vista High School was built with developer fees--money charged per house built inside VUSD? But did you know that Guffanti voted against raising our VUSD developer fees to the California state cap? He did not want our VUSD "government" schools to get the full amount possible. Sadly with not much empty land left in VUSD, developer fee money is a tiny fraction of what it was, too bad we did not capture all the money when it was possible, now sadly it is too late.
I remember he was on the board for the construction of Sierra Vista High School-built using money from a consortium of surrounding school districts. VUSD contribution was the land. The other districts provided the funds. Special Needs students from all the North County districts that funded the construction attend that school. What did exactly did Guffanti do?
Maybe he should get credit for the tiny mismanged VLACS charter school that he supported so vociferously from his seat on the school board. Guffanti was a board member of the VLACS charter AND a sitting VUSD school board member AT THE SAME TIME. Can you say conflict of interest?
Wait ,Wait it gets better. According to a PTA source, Guffanti sold VLACS his self published Rocket Phonics program to use as their reading program while he was a BOARD member of VLACS. Hmm could this be a bit of a criminal conflict of interest that benefitted him financially? I am not a lawyer but perhaps.
Interesting to note that VLACS was first closed after being found in violation of The City of Vista Building Code. There were numerous code violations in the 'classrooms' that Guffanti helped pick out for students to attend. The only charter in Vista that was ever closed by the City of Vista for code violation.
Finally financial irregularities and mismanagement ended VLACS. Guffanti's helping VLACS, a tiny charter school with only a few hundred students at its largest, really was a big help with the terrible overcrowding that VUSD suffered. NOT!
Prop O schools were all built while Guffanti was on the school board. He lifted not one finger to help getting the bond passed. He made not one phone call. He knocked on no doors. He did not send one letter to the editor to the newspaper in favor of Prop O. Nor did he write one forum piece in favor of the Proposition. The only forum piece he did write concerning the vote for placing Prop O on the ballot was in favor of REDUCING the size of Prop O which would have greatly REDUCED the number of schools built. In addition after Prop O passed, he forced the district to spend tens of thousands on looking for additional sites for the new high school. Worse Guffanti's opposition to the cheap level already graded fifty acre Kawano site resulted in the district spending tens of millions more for the next best site, a far less centrally located, completely ungraded, hilly piece of land on Melrose.
More ANTI Accusations--from their lunatic fringe
ANTI blogger, "Plain Truth" also posted the following the article announcing that a new dual magnet high school was to be opened at Washington Middle School.
Plain Truth's plain lie: "The union came to the board and said they didn't want the magnet high schools because it was too much like a charter school. The union board just followed orders."
Hundreds of good union members and other community members worked for TWO DECADES to get a third high school in our district. We would have taken any high school, in fact we did, there is RIGHT now a dual MAGNET high school being completed on Melrose.
Did you read this article?
The MAGNET high school HAS ALREADY opened in a temporary location. Hopefully in January the permanent site will be ready. It would have been built and full of students FIVE years ago if Gibson had not opposed the CHEAP, LEVEL and GRADED fifty acre Kawano site.
Next Plain Truth's plain lie was:
"The last bond, Prop O, had a provision to open the new high school in September 2002 on land already owned by the district. The union board members voted to swap the magnets for Vista Focus Academy."
The district owned no land of fifty or more acres needed for the third high school. We had a chance to own the cheap level Kawano 50 acre property, but Gibson's nixed that.
Vista Focus Academy was for 8th grade students who did not qualify for high school. It was located on land next to Washington middle school owned by the district. The site was maybe seven or eight acres in size at most.
Plain Truth's plain lie: "The union came to the board and said they didn't want the magnet high schools because it was too much like a charter school. The union board just followed orders."
Hundreds of good union members and other community members worked for TWO DECADES to get a third high school in our district. We would have taken any high school, in fact we did, there is RIGHT now a dual MAGNET high school being completed on Melrose.
Did you read this article?
The MAGNET high school HAS ALREADY opened in a temporary location. Hopefully in January the permanent site will be ready. It would have been built and full of students FIVE years ago if Gibson had not opposed the CHEAP, LEVEL and GRADED fifty acre Kawano site.
Next Plain Truth's plain lie was:
"The last bond, Prop O, had a provision to open the new high school in September 2002 on land already owned by the district. The union board members voted to swap the magnets for Vista Focus Academy."
The district owned no land of fifty or more acres needed for the third high school. We had a chance to own the cheap level Kawano 50 acre property, but Gibson's nixed that.
Vista Focus Academy was for 8th grade students who did not qualify for high school. It was located on land next to Washington middle school owned by the district. The site was maybe seven or eight acres in size at most.
ANTI attacks on VUSD, a short history
North County Times, ANTI public education "Plain Truth" blamed the considerable loss of income and benefits suffered by the good teachers in our district on union activity. Ridiculous! Obviously the VTA has been the one thing that has kept this district from slipping into utter disaster. "Plain Truth" is however correct that the teachers of VUSD have lost a lot. He is just wrong has to who caused the problem. Below I have outlined a short history of the ANTI attacks on public education in VUSD that have cost our good students and teachers so much for so long.
A SHORT HISTORY OF ANTI ATTACKS ON PUBLIC EDUCATION IN VUSD
Delays caused by a small group of ANTI public education folks from our district caused the delay of much needed school bonds resulting in escalating land and labor costs. Further delays by the two person ANTI minority on our school board and the ridiculous super majority of four out of five votes needed to acquire land allowed the ANTI board members to waste taxpayer money and escalate costs after a school bond was finally passed. This and the next two posts give a brief history of last two decades in VUSD.
But the reasons have to do with a small but very vocal minority in our district who are ANTI public education. Our ANTI friends managed to "defeat" three needed school bonds which could have built our desperately needed new schools as early as the 1980s for millions in taxpayer's saving over the cost of these same schools that were built in the last five years. There was empty land available and labor and construction costs were cheaper. Our ANTI friends, without conscience, make no apologies for this waste.
Sadly our ANTI friends defeated this bond, Prop K, even though almost 60% of the VUSD electorate voted for it. The ridiculous need for 2/3rd approval in California thwarted the clear will of the majority.
Then the ANTIs "defeated" school bond, Prop L, even though the heroes in our community VUSD community gave it nearly 63% approval. They followed up with a “stealth campaign” and our ANTI friends electing an ANTI board majority in 1992. The 1992 board majority’s antics caused such chaos that VUSD became a NATIONAL laughing stock.
That 1992-94 ANTI board made the front page of New York Times, LATimes and San Francisco Chronicle. The good people of VUSD recalled that board in 1994.
We attempted another bond in 1999 that received the needed 2/3 vote in every single precinct on Election Day but "lost" because of a few hundred ANTI absentee ballots.
The parents of two thousand of our students in the highest performing schools left our district following the 1999 bond defeat.
Finally in March 2002 the good folks of VUSD passed school bond, Prop O allowing the building of new schools. But our ANTI friends were not done with their petty attacks on public education. The two ANTI board members (Gibson and Guffanti) publicly opposed the purchase of cheap, already graded, land at Strawberry Hill for our new high school. Four of five board member votes were needed to purchase the land. Two ANTIs were enough to stop it. Finding and funding the building of the third HS cost the district a delay of five years and tens of millions of dollars for additional costs of land and labor at that site.
The lost of two thousand students and the income they generate by state per pupil spending along with the greatly increased costs of land and labor have drained our district of the resources to better pay our hard working teachers.
Thankfully our ANTI friends are a diminishing minority whose evil influences on our school district have nearly ended.
Only one ANTI board member is left on our district board, Jim Gibson. While Gibson still has the power to create controversy, to mislead the gullible, to waste board time and lengthen meetings, he cannot, without his henchman, Guffanti--defeated last November--, any longer block school construction and waste tens of millions of additional tax payer dollars.
Our VUSD district is back on track. We again focus on educating students instead of fighting political battles with folks who do not believe in public education or "government schools" as they term our good district schools.
Thank God.
A SHORT HISTORY OF ANTI ATTACKS ON PUBLIC EDUCATION IN VUSD
Delays caused by a small group of ANTI public education folks from our district caused the delay of much needed school bonds resulting in escalating land and labor costs. Further delays by the two person ANTI minority on our school board and the ridiculous super majority of four out of five votes needed to acquire land allowed the ANTI board members to waste taxpayer money and escalate costs after a school bond was finally passed. This and the next two posts give a brief history of last two decades in VUSD.
But the reasons have to do with a small but very vocal minority in our district who are ANTI public education. Our ANTI friends managed to "defeat" three needed school bonds which could have built our desperately needed new schools as early as the 1980s for millions in taxpayer's saving over the cost of these same schools that were built in the last five years. There was empty land available and labor and construction costs were cheaper. Our ANTI friends, without conscience, make no apologies for this waste.
Sadly our ANTI friends defeated this bond, Prop K, even though almost 60% of the VUSD electorate voted for it. The ridiculous need for 2/3rd approval in California thwarted the clear will of the majority.
Then the ANTIs "defeated" school bond, Prop L, even though the heroes in our community VUSD community gave it nearly 63% approval. They followed up with a “stealth campaign” and our ANTI friends electing an ANTI board majority in 1992. The 1992 board majority’s antics caused such chaos that VUSD became a NATIONAL laughing stock.
That 1992-94 ANTI board made the front page of New York Times, LATimes and San Francisco Chronicle. The good people of VUSD recalled that board in 1994.
We attempted another bond in 1999 that received the needed 2/3 vote in every single precinct on Election Day but "lost" because of a few hundred ANTI absentee ballots.
The parents of two thousand of our students in the highest performing schools left our district following the 1999 bond defeat.
Finally in March 2002 the good folks of VUSD passed school bond, Prop O allowing the building of new schools. But our ANTI friends were not done with their petty attacks on public education. The two ANTI board members (Gibson and Guffanti) publicly opposed the purchase of cheap, already graded, land at Strawberry Hill for our new high school. Four of five board member votes were needed to purchase the land. Two ANTIs were enough to stop it. Finding and funding the building of the third HS cost the district a delay of five years and tens of millions of dollars for additional costs of land and labor at that site.
The lost of two thousand students and the income they generate by state per pupil spending along with the greatly increased costs of land and labor have drained our district of the resources to better pay our hard working teachers.
Thankfully our ANTI friends are a diminishing minority whose evil influences on our school district have nearly ended.
Only one ANTI board member is left on our district board, Jim Gibson. While Gibson still has the power to create controversy, to mislead the gullible, to waste board time and lengthen meetings, he cannot, without his henchman, Guffanti--defeated last November--, any longer block school construction and waste tens of millions of additional tax payer dollars.
Our VUSD district is back on track. We again focus on educating students instead of fighting political battles with folks who do not believe in public education or "government schools" as they term our good district schools.
Thank God.
Richard Kirk, North County Times, Krazed Kolumnist
The North County Times continues its downward spiral into irrelevancy and no editorial standards by allowing Richard Kirk to publish a virtually completely fact free editorial laced with false and malicious slander. "Union Muscles in Vista"
http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/kirk/article_633f063e-a1bd-5e2e-9dab-adba3ba060f4.html
Kirk lies, slanders and gross propagandistic inaccuracies are printed in red, reality is printed in blue:
(1)Kirk lie: "officials of the Vista Teachers Association, who seem to have the local school board on a short leash."
THE TRUTH: Yeah right Kirk, the union has the school board on a short lease.
No current contract. No raises in several years. A medical plan that constantly raises its deductibles and takes more and more out of teacher salaries flat lined salaries each year. A dental plan that has not raised its reimbursement in TEN YEARS. VUSD teachers get covered with the same amount of dental dollars today that they did TEN YEARS ago. A VUSD teacher can barely get one tooth crown covered in a year with nothing left for dental cleaning or other dental procedures. The same is true for optical services.
In two decades, VUSD teacher salaries going from the third highest unified district salaries to the average VUSD salary being one of the lowest in the county. Last year alone total VUSD teacher salaries dropped by more than 2%--the highest in the county.
The VUSD teachers taking a PAY CUT this year (2009-2010) to save class size reduction. So all the teachers in the district give back more than one half of one percent of their pay so children can learn better in smaller classes. Sounds pretty evil to me.
The hiring of Dr. Joyce Bales without any consultation or input of any kind from the VTA. Dr. Joyce Bales has had ONLY support from the ANTI crowd in VUSD who wrote dozens of blogs and letters to the editor supporting her positions on her expensive reading program. As far as I know no PRO public education person every wrote anything in support of Bales.
Bales went out of her way to support our kooky ANTI board member Stephen Guffanti in his 'jihad' against the RBVHS varsity baseball coach. She went to the secret illegal meeting called by Guffanti to trash the coach.
Bales would never have been interviewed let alone hired if the VTA ran the school board.
The extension of Dr. Joyce Bales contract just before last November's election in which every supporter of Bales was defeated in a near record numbers. It was a clean sweep.
If VTA has the board members on a short lease explain the above FACTS Kirk? Oh that's right an evil bomb thrower like you does not deal in facts. Kind of like showing a vampire a cross, you cringe and run away when facts are present.
(2) Kirk Lie: "when a cost-saving vote to do away with class-size reduction was immediately followed by a flurry of union-inspired actions that resulted in an apparently illegal meeting of three union-responsive board members"
The TRUTH about this meeting can be found in a North County Times article.
As I posted after Kirks opinion piece:
This error filled piece is a new low for Kirk and a sad commentary of the loss of all editorial standards at the North County Times.
There was no "apparently illegal meeting" of any school board members as reported in this newspaper. The following article in the North County Times CORRECTLY notes that there was NO ILLEGAL MEETING.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/03/06/news/coastal/vista/zafeb0db720418fa8882575710068a8e6.txt
If you want real scandal, note that the developer opposed to the new high school gave $5000 to Stephen Guffanti campaign in 2006 when Guffant was NOT running for re-election. Guffanti turned around and gave the EXACT same amount of money to the Jim Gibson who was his political ally. Gibson WAS running for re-election in 2006. This double transaction was hidden from the public until AFTER the election was held and was not reported in the North County Times until January 2007 over two months after the election. One can only wonder why the $5000 was not given directly to Jim Gibson. A good San Diego DA or other legal entity might want to explore illegal campaign money laundering in order to deceive the electorate in this matter.
Anyone who wants to read how Jaka, Chunka, and Herrera ended up in the same place at the same time is invited to read the entirely innocent explanation in Elizabeth Jaka's own words at:
http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/
under the title:
"Secret Illegal Meeting, NOT. Jaka Answers."
(3)Kirk Lie: "the money and effort that goes into the district's school board elections ---- clout whose real dollar-value is obscured by an organizational machine that's deft at minimizing its electoral footprints."
The truth: The VTA as never made a secret about the school board candidates that it endorses. By going through a long deliberate, unbiased and fair interview and recommendation process that includes a vote by the governing body of the VTA the Representative Assembly, we in the VTA have picked incredibly good and competent candidates.
Second truth Guffanti was so nasty, so intemperate and so unfair to school site council supporters and to the RBVHS Coach Fleetes that a HUGE number of parents throughtout the district including student athletes at RBVHS voluntarily joined in the campaign to retire Guffanti and put in place a new trustee who would put the interest of students in VUSD ahead of the political agenda that seemed to drive all of the actions of Guffanti.
(4)Kirk's lie: the salary paid by the district to the President of Vista's Teachers Association-not for teaching but for doing union business
Truth: The VTA president gets absolutely NO MONEY for doing union activities especially political activities. If she did she would not only be fired by the district but she would likely be prosecuted as well. All political activities goes through the Political Action Committee of which she is not and can not be a member. In addition she must record her activities on a daily basis in order to be paid by the district. Here is what I posted in response to anther frequently blogged lie by our ANTI friends:
"Samuel" the acronym for one of the ANTI's most virulent and most fact challenged posters at the North County Times website posted this outright lie when he said:
NCTimes blogger, "Samuel", posted this lie: " The District keeps asking for a breakdown of the union president’s time but those requests are ignored."
As Samuel knows the VTA president submits a MONTHLY report of her DAILY activities, day by day, hour by hour.
There has been NO MONTH EVER that this requirement has ever been ignored. If the president ignored this job requirement, she would NOT BE PAID in fact she could be fired for insubordination.
Geez, how much more can our ANTI friends make up?
(5)Kirk wrote: "As Jill Parvin noted in an Aug. 6 presentation to the board, this union subsidy is occurring..."
Interesting Note: Funny Jill Parvin was mentioned in this article, she is the ONLY person to ever be allowed to publish a letter to the editor and a forum piece in the same week (three days apart) in violation of long standing North County Times editorial standards (oops, sorry for the oxymoron).
What is it about being anti-public education that so appeals to the North County Times editorial staff that two anti public education advocates are given special exceptions to publish on the NCTimes editorial pages.
Parvin pieces violate NCTimes published standards due to timing. Kirk violates all traditional newspaper standards with a piece full of inaccurate information, nasty insinuations, and out right lies.
(6)Blog Editor Note: Following is Kirk's greatest lie and slander in his 'hit piece' which could and should easily have been fact checked and eliminated by the editor of the opinion section of the North County Times if there were any editorial integrity left at that place:
The LIE: it seems that this $30,000-plus per anum gift to the VTA president is not just improper but also illegal
THE TRUTH: The VTA president has a shared contract with the district. Half is paid by the union, half by the district. Most large school districts have a similar contract with their union president. The contract is shared because of the large percentage of hours the union president is working on school district personnel matters saving the district substantial money over creating a special high cost administration position.
Shared contract have passed legal scrutiny not only in VUSD but across California for decades. VUSD has a hired lawyer (the county counsel) whose job it is to screen contract changes for legality. Shared contracts passed the test here and elsewhere in our state.
(7)In 1985, the longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers, Al Shanker, made this statement: "When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."
THE TRUTH: This statement is the standard out of context guilt by association crap that our ANTI friends are so good at.
Al Shanker is NOT a VTA member, NEVER was.
Al Shanker is NOT a CTA member NEVER was.
Al Shanker is NOT a NEA member NEVER was.
However Al Shanker was the president of a RIVAL national teacher group to the NEA and its affiliates CTA and VTA.
His comment was made OVER TWENTY years ago in answer to some vicious and libelous comment made to him by an ANTI. His out of context comment has been used on every ANTI public education website, ANTI public education column and ANTI public education radio and TV program virtually every time these evil folks decide to attack the good folks who provide FACT BASED free public education to all children in the United States from K through 12th grade. That Kirk would use this old out of context quote that Stephen Guffanti and other ANTI submitters have used many times before in the North County Times shows how very thin his evidence of selfish union action is.
(8)Kirks Lie: it's hard to deny that unions are doing much better than the pupils whose interests they purport to serve ---- by serving themselves.
The teachers of this district have sacrificed a great amount of time and effort in saving this district from the disrupting influence of the ANTI public education crowd who for two decades 'defeated' school bonds for desperately needed schools in our district.
Teachers gave TENS OF THOUSANDS of hours of free volunteer time after a hard day of school teaching for each of the three defeated bonds and the for Prop O the bond that finally passed.
Teachers gave those hours knowing that new schools cost money out of the general fund that provides teacher salaries, knowing that when a bond passed there would be less future money for salary increases and to maintain medical, dental and optical benefits.
If we did not do that for the children who did we do it for?
http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/kirk/article_633f063e-a1bd-5e2e-9dab-adba3ba060f4.html
Kirk lies, slanders and gross propagandistic inaccuracies are printed in red, reality is printed in blue:
(1)Kirk lie: "officials of the Vista Teachers Association, who seem to have the local school board on a short leash."
THE TRUTH: Yeah right Kirk, the union has the school board on a short lease.
No current contract. No raises in several years. A medical plan that constantly raises its deductibles and takes more and more out of teacher salaries flat lined salaries each year. A dental plan that has not raised its reimbursement in TEN YEARS. VUSD teachers get covered with the same amount of dental dollars today that they did TEN YEARS ago. A VUSD teacher can barely get one tooth crown covered in a year with nothing left for dental cleaning or other dental procedures. The same is true for optical services.
In two decades, VUSD teacher salaries going from the third highest unified district salaries to the average VUSD salary being one of the lowest in the county. Last year alone total VUSD teacher salaries dropped by more than 2%--the highest in the county.
The VUSD teachers taking a PAY CUT this year (2009-2010) to save class size reduction. So all the teachers in the district give back more than one half of one percent of their pay so children can learn better in smaller classes. Sounds pretty evil to me.
The hiring of Dr. Joyce Bales without any consultation or input of any kind from the VTA. Dr. Joyce Bales has had ONLY support from the ANTI crowd in VUSD who wrote dozens of blogs and letters to the editor supporting her positions on her expensive reading program. As far as I know no PRO public education person every wrote anything in support of Bales.
Bales went out of her way to support our kooky ANTI board member Stephen Guffanti in his 'jihad' against the RBVHS varsity baseball coach. She went to the secret illegal meeting called by Guffanti to trash the coach.
Bales would never have been interviewed let alone hired if the VTA ran the school board.
The extension of Dr. Joyce Bales contract just before last November's election in which every supporter of Bales was defeated in a near record numbers. It was a clean sweep.
If VTA has the board members on a short lease explain the above FACTS Kirk? Oh that's right an evil bomb thrower like you does not deal in facts. Kind of like showing a vampire a cross, you cringe and run away when facts are present.
(2) Kirk Lie: "when a cost-saving vote to do away with class-size reduction was immediately followed by a flurry of union-inspired actions that resulted in an apparently illegal meeting of three union-responsive board members"
The TRUTH about this meeting can be found in a North County Times article.
As I posted after Kirks opinion piece:
This error filled piece is a new low for Kirk and a sad commentary of the loss of all editorial standards at the North County Times.
There was no "apparently illegal meeting" of any school board members as reported in this newspaper. The following article in the North County Times CORRECTLY notes that there was NO ILLEGAL MEETING.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/03/06/news/coastal/vista/zafeb0db720418fa8882575710068a8e6.txt
If you want real scandal, note that the developer opposed to the new high school gave $5000 to Stephen Guffanti campaign in 2006 when Guffant was NOT running for re-election. Guffanti turned around and gave the EXACT same amount of money to the Jim Gibson who was his political ally. Gibson WAS running for re-election in 2006. This double transaction was hidden from the public until AFTER the election was held and was not reported in the North County Times until January 2007 over two months after the election. One can only wonder why the $5000 was not given directly to Jim Gibson. A good San Diego DA or other legal entity might want to explore illegal campaign money laundering in order to deceive the electorate in this matter.
Anyone who wants to read how Jaka, Chunka, and Herrera ended up in the same place at the same time is invited to read the entirely innocent explanation in Elizabeth Jaka's own words at:
http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/
under the title:
"Secret Illegal Meeting, NOT. Jaka Answers."
(3)Kirk Lie: "the money and effort that goes into the district's school board elections ---- clout whose real dollar-value is obscured by an organizational machine that's deft at minimizing its electoral footprints."
The truth: The VTA as never made a secret about the school board candidates that it endorses. By going through a long deliberate, unbiased and fair interview and recommendation process that includes a vote by the governing body of the VTA the Representative Assembly, we in the VTA have picked incredibly good and competent candidates.
Second truth Guffanti was so nasty, so intemperate and so unfair to school site council supporters and to the RBVHS Coach Fleetes that a HUGE number of parents throughtout the district including student athletes at RBVHS voluntarily joined in the campaign to retire Guffanti and put in place a new trustee who would put the interest of students in VUSD ahead of the political agenda that seemed to drive all of the actions of Guffanti.
(4)Kirk's lie: the salary paid by the district to the President of Vista's Teachers Association-not for teaching but for doing union business
Truth: The VTA president gets absolutely NO MONEY for doing union activities especially political activities. If she did she would not only be fired by the district but she would likely be prosecuted as well. All political activities goes through the Political Action Committee of which she is not and can not be a member. In addition she must record her activities on a daily basis in order to be paid by the district. Here is what I posted in response to anther frequently blogged lie by our ANTI friends:
"Samuel" the acronym for one of the ANTI's most virulent and most fact challenged posters at the North County Times website posted this outright lie when he said:
NCTimes blogger, "Samuel", posted this lie: " The District keeps asking for a breakdown of the union president’s time but those requests are ignored."
As Samuel knows the VTA president submits a MONTHLY report of her DAILY activities, day by day, hour by hour.
There has been NO MONTH EVER that this requirement has ever been ignored. If the president ignored this job requirement, she would NOT BE PAID in fact she could be fired for insubordination.
Geez, how much more can our ANTI friends make up?
(5)Kirk wrote: "As Jill Parvin noted in an Aug. 6 presentation to the board, this union subsidy is occurring..."
Interesting Note: Funny Jill Parvin was mentioned in this article, she is the ONLY person to ever be allowed to publish a letter to the editor and a forum piece in the same week (three days apart) in violation of long standing North County Times editorial standards (oops, sorry for the oxymoron).
What is it about being anti-public education that so appeals to the North County Times editorial staff that two anti public education advocates are given special exceptions to publish on the NCTimes editorial pages.
Parvin pieces violate NCTimes published standards due to timing. Kirk violates all traditional newspaper standards with a piece full of inaccurate information, nasty insinuations, and out right lies.
(6)Blog Editor Note: Following is Kirk's greatest lie and slander in his 'hit piece' which could and should easily have been fact checked and eliminated by the editor of the opinion section of the North County Times if there were any editorial integrity left at that place:
The LIE: it seems that this $30,000-plus per anum gift to the VTA president is not just improper but also illegal
THE TRUTH: The VTA president has a shared contract with the district. Half is paid by the union, half by the district. Most large school districts have a similar contract with their union president. The contract is shared because of the large percentage of hours the union president is working on school district personnel matters saving the district substantial money over creating a special high cost administration position.
Shared contract have passed legal scrutiny not only in VUSD but across California for decades. VUSD has a hired lawyer (the county counsel) whose job it is to screen contract changes for legality. Shared contracts passed the test here and elsewhere in our state.
(7)In 1985, the longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers, Al Shanker, made this statement: "When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."
THE TRUTH: This statement is the standard out of context guilt by association crap that our ANTI friends are so good at.
Al Shanker is NOT a VTA member, NEVER was.
Al Shanker is NOT a CTA member NEVER was.
Al Shanker is NOT a NEA member NEVER was.
However Al Shanker was the president of a RIVAL national teacher group to the NEA and its affiliates CTA and VTA.
His comment was made OVER TWENTY years ago in answer to some vicious and libelous comment made to him by an ANTI. His out of context comment has been used on every ANTI public education website, ANTI public education column and ANTI public education radio and TV program virtually every time these evil folks decide to attack the good folks who provide FACT BASED free public education to all children in the United States from K through 12th grade. That Kirk would use this old out of context quote that Stephen Guffanti and other ANTI submitters have used many times before in the North County Times shows how very thin his evidence of selfish union action is.
(8)Kirks Lie: it's hard to deny that unions are doing much better than the pupils whose interests they purport to serve ---- by serving themselves.
The teachers of this district have sacrificed a great amount of time and effort in saving this district from the disrupting influence of the ANTI public education crowd who for two decades 'defeated' school bonds for desperately needed schools in our district.
Teachers gave TENS OF THOUSANDS of hours of free volunteer time after a hard day of school teaching for each of the three defeated bonds and the for Prop O the bond that finally passed.
Teachers gave those hours knowing that new schools cost money out of the general fund that provides teacher salaries, knowing that when a bond passed there would be less future money for salary increases and to maintain medical, dental and optical benefits.
If we did not do that for the children who did we do it for?
Private School educate better than public schools?
After the article mentioned in the previous post our ANTI friends immediately made unsubstantiated claims about private schools being better than public schools.
Not true, of course, as anyone who looks at the literature knows.
Public school students do every bit as well as private schools, charter schools, home schooling children, etc on standardized math, science and reading tests. Evem better if you let public schools select which students that will attend their schools and which students will take the tests as private schools do. Of if you let public school pick and choose which tests they will give their students as private schools do. Give us those same advantages that the private schools have and we will not only do as well we will clean their clocks.
Our teachers are smarter, better educated and work far harder than any private school "high school graduate, maybe" private school teacher.
I have dealt with and tried to help the victims of some of the extremophile private religious schools in Vista when these poor victims re-enter public schools for a real education. (I say this as outraged Christian who spent more than twenty years as a Sunday School teacher and more than five years as a director of a Christian scouting group that had hundreds of children in attendence each Wednesday night and as a Church Board member as well. I AM ANGRY at the terrible education many of our local children are getting at local religious schools and in their home school teaching curriculums).
Here is what I blogged in responce to one member of our ANTI education crowd:
"Private schools educate better than public schools" Oh really?
Like the private religious school in Vista that has a "science" teacher who tells his student victims that "there was no such thing as dinosaurs. They were just bones of large animals put together in fanciful ways by scientists."
If this newspaper blog would allow me I would give you the name of the school, the teacher, and the student victim who came to my class the following year after the having a nut case fanatic as a "science" teacher at this "wonderful" private school. (Blog Editor's Note: It is the Missouri Synod, Lutheran Church school located near Vista High School. I believe it is on the corner of San Clemente and Bobier.)
I showed the boy a picture of complete dinosaur skeletons with the bones perfectly in place, half in and half out of the rock, from Dinosaur National Monument in Vernal, Utah. The bones had been there without being moved by the scientist since the day the dinosaurs died. The scientist only cleaned off the top half of the bones so that the viewing public could see what the dinosaur bones looked like in situ (in place, unmoved).
Glad I could help that one boy but what about the hundreds of other victims at that Vista private "school"? Who will give them the correct picture?
Not true, of course, as anyone who looks at the literature knows.
Public school students do every bit as well as private schools, charter schools, home schooling children, etc on standardized math, science and reading tests. Evem better if you let public schools select which students that will attend their schools and which students will take the tests as private schools do. Of if you let public school pick and choose which tests they will give their students as private schools do. Give us those same advantages that the private schools have and we will not only do as well we will clean their clocks.
Our teachers are smarter, better educated and work far harder than any private school "high school graduate, maybe" private school teacher.
I have dealt with and tried to help the victims of some of the extremophile private religious schools in Vista when these poor victims re-enter public schools for a real education. (I say this as outraged Christian who spent more than twenty years as a Sunday School teacher and more than five years as a director of a Christian scouting group that had hundreds of children in attendence each Wednesday night and as a Church Board member as well. I AM ANGRY at the terrible education many of our local children are getting at local religious schools and in their home school teaching curriculums).
Here is what I blogged in responce to one member of our ANTI education crowd:
"Private schools educate better than public schools" Oh really?
Like the private religious school in Vista that has a "science" teacher who tells his student victims that "there was no such thing as dinosaurs. They were just bones of large animals put together in fanciful ways by scientists."
If this newspaper blog would allow me I would give you the name of the school, the teacher, and the student victim who came to my class the following year after the having a nut case fanatic as a "science" teacher at this "wonderful" private school. (Blog Editor's Note: It is the Missouri Synod, Lutheran Church school located near Vista High School. I believe it is on the corner of San Clemente and Bobier.)
I showed the boy a picture of complete dinosaur skeletons with the bones perfectly in place, half in and half out of the rock, from Dinosaur National Monument in Vernal, Utah. The bones had been there without being moved by the scientist since the day the dinosaurs died. The scientist only cleaned off the top half of the bones so that the viewing public could see what the dinosaur bones looked like in situ (in place, unmoved).
Glad I could help that one boy but what about the hundreds of other victims at that Vista private "school"? Who will give them the correct picture?
Another day, Another Teacher Bashing from North County Times
What is it about our friends at the North County Times that they dislike teachers and education so much?
Today our North County Times friends directed a good reporter to write a bad story regarding an increasing staff at North County schools while the number of students is falling. Could it be a union conspiracy? Could evil union members be padding the payroll?
Sounds bad when written that way. But NCTimes failed to mention that this increase costs the local taxpayers NOTHING. That's right. NO extra money for the extra staff. Some money for increased K-3 staff for class size reduction came from state money, other money needed to hire additional NON-teaching staff necessary when new schools were built, came out of finite pot of money that school districts have thus reducing salaries for all already employed staff.
Here is the URL for the latest North County Times hit piece against the good teachers and school staff that sacrifice so much for our North County students.
http://nctimes.com/news/local/oceanside/article_ad9428ea-7c67-50f3-8189-e1baa43aabbd.html?mode=story
My posts after reading the article:
Don't you wonder who "suggested" the topic of this article? Which of the virulent anti-middle class, anti- union editorial troika "thought" it was a "good idea" to write an article focusing on increased staff. Obviously to give the PHONY impression to the easily fooled that increased staff meant increased taxpayer cost. (Actually the more staff, the less in the district budget to pay other staff members).
Don't you wonder why the main topic of this article is increased staff/fewer students instead of the far better more important story having to do with increased learning with smaller class sizes and uncomplaining teachers who have accepted lower salary and a steady drop in San Diego County school district salary rankings as staff size increases?
Here is another great story, why aren't the teachers complaining? Why aren't they going on strike as their salary rank drops? Shouldn't there be an article about how local teachers are great human beings willing to give up salary to help their students?
As this article mentions the number one reason for more teachers is K-3 Class Size Reduction. CSR is a GOOD THING. In VUSD K-3 teachers had 32 students per class before the state funded class size reduction. Class size reduction took that down to twenty per classroom. Which means that for those grades one third more teachers were hired and students get far more individual attention.
Smaller class sizes, with all things being equal, give students a greater chance to succeed. Study after study shows that students who cannot read well by end of grade three have a far greater chance of becoming high school dropouts. K-3 are the MOST critical grades for creating success for our students.
In VUSD all teachers in the district gave up a full day of pay (a buy back day) which amounts to several hundred dollars per teacher in order to preserve class size reduction for one more year because teachers know class size reduction is incredibly important.
Another huge reason for more staff in VUSD is the huge increase in NON-teaching staff needed when our district converted from year around school where one school was used to house a school and a half full of students to finally passing a school bond (Prop O) which build MANY new schools that each needed a full complement of school secretaries custodians etc. to staff. NON teaching classified staff went up by at least a third.
We, the VUSD teachers aka the certified staff, knew building new schools meant increased costs over the year round system. We knew that money would come from future salary and benefits. Still we organized and we worked to pass the bond. The members of the Vista Teachers Association has been heroic and self sacrificing while the editorial staff of this newspaper writes scathingly critical and fact free attacks on the good teachers of VUSD.
The money to hire the additional NON teaching staff came from our teacher salaries which have fallen in rank in San Diego County from third highest unified district to one of the lowest salaries in the county. Why isn't this drop in relative salary rankings worth a mention in this article? Why doesn’t this paper’s editorial ever mention that all teachers in VUSD gave up a FULL day of pay to preserve class size reduction? Why is the focus of this article on more staff instead of the sacrifices that the teachers and other staff members have made to allow for this? District money is FINITE. More employees does not mean a bigger COST to district taxpayers, it means less in salary and benefits for all the others already employed. Gladly given up to help our students.
Today our North County Times friends directed a good reporter to write a bad story regarding an increasing staff at North County schools while the number of students is falling. Could it be a union conspiracy? Could evil union members be padding the payroll?
Sounds bad when written that way. But NCTimes failed to mention that this increase costs the local taxpayers NOTHING. That's right. NO extra money for the extra staff. Some money for increased K-3 staff for class size reduction came from state money, other money needed to hire additional NON-teaching staff necessary when new schools were built, came out of finite pot of money that school districts have thus reducing salaries for all already employed staff.
Here is the URL for the latest North County Times hit piece against the good teachers and school staff that sacrifice so much for our North County students.
http://nctimes.com/news/local/oceanside/article_ad9428ea-7c67-50f3-8189-e1baa43aabbd.html?mode=story
My posts after reading the article:
Don't you wonder who "suggested" the topic of this article? Which of the virulent anti-middle class, anti- union editorial troika "thought" it was a "good idea" to write an article focusing on increased staff. Obviously to give the PHONY impression to the easily fooled that increased staff meant increased taxpayer cost. (Actually the more staff, the less in the district budget to pay other staff members).
Don't you wonder why the main topic of this article is increased staff/fewer students instead of the far better more important story having to do with increased learning with smaller class sizes and uncomplaining teachers who have accepted lower salary and a steady drop in San Diego County school district salary rankings as staff size increases?
Here is another great story, why aren't the teachers complaining? Why aren't they going on strike as their salary rank drops? Shouldn't there be an article about how local teachers are great human beings willing to give up salary to help their students?
As this article mentions the number one reason for more teachers is K-3 Class Size Reduction. CSR is a GOOD THING. In VUSD K-3 teachers had 32 students per class before the state funded class size reduction. Class size reduction took that down to twenty per classroom. Which means that for those grades one third more teachers were hired and students get far more individual attention.
Smaller class sizes, with all things being equal, give students a greater chance to succeed. Study after study shows that students who cannot read well by end of grade three have a far greater chance of becoming high school dropouts. K-3 are the MOST critical grades for creating success for our students.
In VUSD all teachers in the district gave up a full day of pay (a buy back day) which amounts to several hundred dollars per teacher in order to preserve class size reduction for one more year because teachers know class size reduction is incredibly important.
Another huge reason for more staff in VUSD is the huge increase in NON-teaching staff needed when our district converted from year around school where one school was used to house a school and a half full of students to finally passing a school bond (Prop O) which build MANY new schools that each needed a full complement of school secretaries custodians etc. to staff. NON teaching classified staff went up by at least a third.
We, the VUSD teachers aka the certified staff, knew building new schools meant increased costs over the year round system. We knew that money would come from future salary and benefits. Still we organized and we worked to pass the bond. The members of the Vista Teachers Association has been heroic and self sacrificing while the editorial staff of this newspaper writes scathingly critical and fact free attacks on the good teachers of VUSD.
The money to hire the additional NON teaching staff came from our teacher salaries which have fallen in rank in San Diego County from third highest unified district to one of the lowest salaries in the county. Why isn't this drop in relative salary rankings worth a mention in this article? Why doesn’t this paper’s editorial ever mention that all teachers in VUSD gave up a FULL day of pay to preserve class size reduction? Why is the focus of this article on more staff instead of the sacrifices that the teachers and other staff members have made to allow for this? District money is FINITE. More employees does not mean a bigger COST to district taxpayers, it means less in salary and benefits for all the others already employed. Gladly given up to help our students.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Too Much VUSD Testing?
Theme Skills Tests, a test too far?
In the North County Times recently was an article by Stacy Brandt entitled,
“REGION: Testing improvements attributed to teachers, increase of data.”
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/oceanside/article_cc88423e-15a4-5eb6-8755-71f8722880f7.html?mode=story
Stacy Brandt wrote something which sounds good to the public and benefits district’s administration’s need for data but is NOT likely to be in the best interests of our students in VUSD. Below printed in red is the part of the article I question:
Teachers are becoming more familiar with what students are expected to know in each grade level, which has also helped to bring up test scores, said Sally Bennett-Schmidt, assessment coordinator with the San Diego County Office of Education. State education officials rewrote the tests in 2003 to align them closer to academic standards that were adopted a few years before.
Technology has also made it easier for teachers and administrators to receive and understand test scores more quickly, Bennett-Schmidt said. This means struggling students can get help sooner.
For example, teachers in the Vista Unified School District can use the results to benchmark tests quarterly to figure out which students need help on a particular topic and give those students extra attention. Principals can also use the data to decide which students should get more intensive, one-on-one help.
We can all agree that assessment is a good. Without testing it would be far more difficult to analyze the effectiveness of various teaching strategies. But we need balance in all things including testing.
Student testing comes at a price. For every hour of testing more than one hour of instruction is lost. The time lost beyond the time taking test is lost due to need for practice for test and give students instructions for taking the test.
Teaching time is finite.
Two or even three days are lost each time students must take a standardized, bubble in, test.
In addition is what I call the Ennui Factor. The more standardized bubble in tests students take the less “special” the test is and the less ‘focus’ the students have. The students are bored by taking these kinds of tests. A greater and greater percentage of students do not see the point in making an effort on the test. These bored and over tested students just randomly bubble in rather than make an effort. I have known students who made patterns for amusement with the filled in bubbles without even looking at the questions. We do not want students so tired of bubble in tests that by the time the California Standards Test in the Spring rolls around that they no longer care about trying to do their best. Our poor Spanish speaking students must also take a CELD Test. Just too many bubble in tests.
There is a further penalty regarding teacher effectiveness that has cost that is real but difficult to quantify. It is the intangible loss of quality as teachers must devote ever more teacher preparation time to the Scan Tron machine (when it works) and to uploading the results via their computers to Edusoft. This prep time lost is quality time that teachers need to evaluate how the lessons of the day are going, decide if and what changes are needed to increase effectiveness, correct daily work, quizzes and tests. These are the tasks that allow teacher to pinpoint students and concepts that need more work and to increase the teacher's effectiveness as a conveyor of knowledge. When decisions to increase student testing are made the costs must be calculated into the decision or at some point, increased testing actually decreases student performance.
This teacher time penalty is much worse for the poor first and second grade teachers whose students do not have the hand coordination to bubble in the test answers themselves. These poor teachers must transfer by hand all student answers to test bubble in answer sheets. Teachers are given NO help to do this laborious job. Such a system begs for errors in transcription as teachers become tired.
Besides what is the point? All teachers constantly are monitoring their students by grading quizzes and correcting daily class work. The results of the giant bubble in test are not a surprise to teachers and are not necessary for teachers to know who and what needs re-teaching. Teachers already have a multitude of ways to monitor students. Bubble in testing is really only useful for district administration to monitor schools, individual teachers and students. There is benefit for district administration but really little or none for teachers and students. However the reality is the less the district admin needs for their admin purposes the better for student learning.
We have may have reached the point of lowered student achievement because of too much testing—Testing Overkill—at least as far as K-6 is concerned. Recently the district has required that teachers increase the number of district required tests from three Benchmark Tests one each time their is a report card. This is actually six benchmark tests, three in language arts and three in math. Now with the additional requirement of the Theme Skills Tests, there are at least three more bubble in tests during the school year, making a total of nine for every student.
Most teachers would agree that Benchmark Tests are important if for nothing else than giving students practice for the bubble California Standards Test required by the state. Each of the six Benchmark Tests must be scanned into the scantron machine and then uploaded into Edusoft for the district administration to monitor. These are time consuming processes. This extra work must be done by the classroom teacher as the district provides no paid help for these extra jobs.
By requiring even three or possibly four more Theme Skill Tests in addition to the Bench Mark tests that also need to be scanned and uploaded by overworked teachers, the district administration has crossed a line from effective testing with real benefits for students to overkill with likely reductions in real learning for our students.
No Child Left Behind requires test scores to improve. This newTheme Skill Test requirement is likely to mean test scores will drop not rise. Let’s hope district administration will re-think this new requirement. Over testing is as detrimental to better student test scores as overbaking is to a cake.
NOTE: Scantron has a fairly high error rate. In my experience poorly maintained machines and tests that are bubbled in less than perfectly can result in an error rate as high as 2 to 4%.
I used scantron for all my chapter tests when I taught science. On several occasions I checked the scantron scoring by hand scoring tests after running them through the scantron and found that the machine had marked more incorrect than were actually incorrect on as many as one in every three or four tests. Part of the fault was the student had not marked bubbles as darkly as needed but for some of the scantron answer sheets I saw NOTHING wrong with the way in which the student had marked the answer, yet the machine still marked the correct answer as wrong.
I made up for the problem by running all tests twice and by readjusting my grading curve to reflect the scantron error rate.
No one should rely on the scantron test results to be error free.
In the North County Times recently was an article by Stacy Brandt entitled,
“REGION: Testing improvements attributed to teachers, increase of data.”
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/oceanside/article_cc88423e-15a4-5eb6-8755-71f8722880f7.html?mode=story
Stacy Brandt wrote something which sounds good to the public and benefits district’s administration’s need for data but is NOT likely to be in the best interests of our students in VUSD. Below printed in red is the part of the article I question:
Teachers are becoming more familiar with what students are expected to know in each grade level, which has also helped to bring up test scores, said Sally Bennett-Schmidt, assessment coordinator with the San Diego County Office of Education. State education officials rewrote the tests in 2003 to align them closer to academic standards that were adopted a few years before.
Technology has also made it easier for teachers and administrators to receive and understand test scores more quickly, Bennett-Schmidt said. This means struggling students can get help sooner.
For example, teachers in the Vista Unified School District can use the results to benchmark tests quarterly to figure out which students need help on a particular topic and give those students extra attention. Principals can also use the data to decide which students should get more intensive, one-on-one help.
We can all agree that assessment is a good. Without testing it would be far more difficult to analyze the effectiveness of various teaching strategies. But we need balance in all things including testing.
Student testing comes at a price. For every hour of testing more than one hour of instruction is lost. The time lost beyond the time taking test is lost due to need for practice for test and give students instructions for taking the test.
Teaching time is finite.
Two or even three days are lost each time students must take a standardized, bubble in, test.
In addition is what I call the Ennui Factor. The more standardized bubble in tests students take the less “special” the test is and the less ‘focus’ the students have. The students are bored by taking these kinds of tests. A greater and greater percentage of students do not see the point in making an effort on the test. These bored and over tested students just randomly bubble in rather than make an effort. I have known students who made patterns for amusement with the filled in bubbles without even looking at the questions. We do not want students so tired of bubble in tests that by the time the California Standards Test in the Spring rolls around that they no longer care about trying to do their best. Our poor Spanish speaking students must also take a CELD Test. Just too many bubble in tests.
There is a further penalty regarding teacher effectiveness that has cost that is real but difficult to quantify. It is the intangible loss of quality as teachers must devote ever more teacher preparation time to the Scan Tron machine (when it works) and to uploading the results via their computers to Edusoft. This prep time lost is quality time that teachers need to evaluate how the lessons of the day are going, decide if and what changes are needed to increase effectiveness, correct daily work, quizzes and tests. These are the tasks that allow teacher to pinpoint students and concepts that need more work and to increase the teacher's effectiveness as a conveyor of knowledge. When decisions to increase student testing are made the costs must be calculated into the decision or at some point, increased testing actually decreases student performance.
This teacher time penalty is much worse for the poor first and second grade teachers whose students do not have the hand coordination to bubble in the test answers themselves. These poor teachers must transfer by hand all student answers to test bubble in answer sheets. Teachers are given NO help to do this laborious job. Such a system begs for errors in transcription as teachers become tired.
Besides what is the point? All teachers constantly are monitoring their students by grading quizzes and correcting daily class work. The results of the giant bubble in test are not a surprise to teachers and are not necessary for teachers to know who and what needs re-teaching. Teachers already have a multitude of ways to monitor students. Bubble in testing is really only useful for district administration to monitor schools, individual teachers and students. There is benefit for district administration but really little or none for teachers and students. However the reality is the less the district admin needs for their admin purposes the better for student learning.
We have may have reached the point of lowered student achievement because of too much testing—Testing Overkill—at least as far as K-6 is concerned. Recently the district has required that teachers increase the number of district required tests from three Benchmark Tests one each time their is a report card. This is actually six benchmark tests, three in language arts and three in math. Now with the additional requirement of the Theme Skills Tests, there are at least three more bubble in tests during the school year, making a total of nine for every student.
Most teachers would agree that Benchmark Tests are important if for nothing else than giving students practice for the bubble California Standards Test required by the state. Each of the six Benchmark Tests must be scanned into the scantron machine and then uploaded into Edusoft for the district administration to monitor. These are time consuming processes. This extra work must be done by the classroom teacher as the district provides no paid help for these extra jobs.
By requiring even three or possibly four more Theme Skill Tests in addition to the Bench Mark tests that also need to be scanned and uploaded by overworked teachers, the district administration has crossed a line from effective testing with real benefits for students to overkill with likely reductions in real learning for our students.
No Child Left Behind requires test scores to improve. This newTheme Skill Test requirement is likely to mean test scores will drop not rise. Let’s hope district administration will re-think this new requirement. Over testing is as detrimental to better student test scores as overbaking is to a cake.
NOTE: Scantron has a fairly high error rate. In my experience poorly maintained machines and tests that are bubbled in less than perfectly can result in an error rate as high as 2 to 4%.
I used scantron for all my chapter tests when I taught science. On several occasions I checked the scantron scoring by hand scoring tests after running them through the scantron and found that the machine had marked more incorrect than were actually incorrect on as many as one in every three or four tests. Part of the fault was the student had not marked bubbles as darkly as needed but for some of the scantron answer sheets I saw NOTHING wrong with the way in which the student had marked the answer, yet the machine still marked the correct answer as wrong.
I made up for the problem by running all tests twice and by readjusting my grading curve to reflect the scantron error rate.
No one should rely on the scantron test results to be error free.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Secret, Illegal Meeting? NOT! Jaka answers.
Our ANTI friends are disorganized. They are a diminishing in number but they are still able to post lies and libel on the North County blogs. They have nothing but their illegal secret meeting conspiracy theories.
Below is a posting from last May that was taken down by the North County Times followed by the innocent explanation in Elizabeth Jaka's own words. Elizabeth wrote the explanation and sent it to the North County Times in May after the lie was posted. I received it shortly after but did not post it at that time.
The LIE is highlighted in RED. The true, factual and innocent explanation by Elizabeth Jaka is in BLUE. I with held name and phone number of the witness for privacy reasons. I was not requested to do so. The name and number were given to the North County Times.
Now Elizabeth Jaka in her own words:
I'm writing to let you know that the following blog needs to be removed from Mr. Gibson's editorial on Heroes:
VUSD Taxpayer May 21, 2009 7:52AM PST
Gibson's article should have been on the lack of ethics and character on the school board as exhibited by the three board members Herrera, Chunka and Jaka. They got caught violating state law and ethics 2 months ago when they held an illegal meeting at 1:30 in the morning at Board President Herrera's house 4 hours after the board meeting ended. Two Vista Teacher's Union reps also attended the "accidental" meeting and told them they had misvoted hours earlier at the school board meeting. Mrs. Herrera immediately called for another school board meeting where the three changed their vote. THis secret meeting is ILLEGAL in the state of California and is also unethical. It demonstrates the very opposite of what character is. But please remember that these three Vista Trustees have received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the Teacher's union. Rumor is that the illegal meetings still take place. Please explain to me why those three are still on the board. When it comes to setting examples, the trustess should be the first ones to lead us. As a taxpayer, I feel these three trustees, Herrera, Chunka and Jaka represent the labor unions and not me, the taxpayer.
HERE'S WHY:
1) No one was "caught" violating state law or ethics. The claim was looked into and found to be without merit.
2) I was not at Mrs. Herrera's house at 1:30 that morning, I was in Oceanside, near the airport, giving a friend a ride home from the meeting (this can be confirmed by (name and phone number with held for privacy reasons by blog editor). This is public information, given at the March 5/March 12 board meetings (although (name with held by blog editor)'s personal information was not given).
3) The board meeting in question ended at 12:45 a.m., not 9:30 as the blogger claims. This is documented in the board minutes here: http://www.vusd.k12.ca.us/board/Board%20Meetings/2009/02-26-2009.pdf. I didn't get off the site until after 1:00 because so many people wanted to express their dissatisfaction with what had taken place. I doubt that anyone else got out much before 1:00 either.
4) After I dropped (name withheld for privacy by blog editor) at her home, I went by Mrs. Herrera's house to check on her because she was not answering her phone, and I knew her husband was out of town. I knew she was extremely stressed (we all were) and I wanted to make sure she was okay. I was surprised to find her driveway was full of cars, and there were a number of people present. Until I walked in however, I did not realize that Mrs. Chunka was also present and that I would be the third board member. At that point, I started to leave, but Mrs. Herrera left the room, remedying any violation. This obviously cannot be proven, but it is also public information that was given at the March 5 AND March 12 board meetings.
5) No one told me I "misvoted" after I arrived. The bulk of the conversation that I recall was about Read Across America, and the fact that I knew I would be facing some unhappy people when I came to their rooms to read the next day and the following Monday. I stated as much at the board meeting on March 12. Frankly, I was not interested in discussing my vote, nor would I have wanted to talk about undoing what we'd just spent six grueling hours doing (plus another two hours in Closed Session).
How would "VUSD Taxpayer" know what was discussed? He/she was clearly not there since all the statements of "fact" in the blog are incorrect.
6) Mrs. Herrera did NOT immediately call another meeting. The March 5 and March 12 meetings had been set for some time. On March 11, Mrs. Herrera did call for a special meeting to follow the regular meeting on March 12, so that we could vote on the issue one more time. This was a confirmation of the previous vote.
7) I changed my vote on March 5/12 only because the finance department came forward with an alternative to cutting Class Size Reduction. I had been to the finance office on February 27 to ask them to keep looking for other options. Mrs. Chunka did not change her vote. This is also public information, and can be found in the minutes for the March 5 meeting: http://www.vusd.k12.ca.us/board/Board%20Meetings/2009/03-05-2009.pdf On March 12, we voted to cut a buy-back day instead.
8) Although the unions did spend quite a bit of money on our campaigns, we did not receive 10s of thousands of dollars in contributions from them. They spent the money as they saw fit. That may seem like quibbling, but it's important to me. It's just as important to note that David Arnold, who tried to stop construction of our high schools, spent more than $63K on Guffanti's campaign in 2004. Although that is documented, I never see mention of it.
9) There are no secret, illegal meetings taking place. We showed poor judgment in being in the same place at the same time, and we have all publicly apologized for that, twice. Stating "Rumor is that the illegal meetings still take place" is libelous.
Below is a posting from last May that was taken down by the North County Times followed by the innocent explanation in Elizabeth Jaka's own words. Elizabeth wrote the explanation and sent it to the North County Times in May after the lie was posted. I received it shortly after but did not post it at that time.
The LIE is highlighted in RED. The true, factual and innocent explanation by Elizabeth Jaka is in BLUE. I with held name and phone number of the witness for privacy reasons. I was not requested to do so. The name and number were given to the North County Times.
Now Elizabeth Jaka in her own words:
I'm writing to let you know that the following blog needs to be removed from Mr. Gibson's editorial on Heroes:
VUSD Taxpayer May 21, 2009 7:52AM PST
Gibson's article should have been on the lack of ethics and character on the school board as exhibited by the three board members Herrera, Chunka and Jaka. They got caught violating state law and ethics 2 months ago when they held an illegal meeting at 1:30 in the morning at Board President Herrera's house 4 hours after the board meeting ended. Two Vista Teacher's Union reps also attended the "accidental" meeting and told them they had misvoted hours earlier at the school board meeting. Mrs. Herrera immediately called for another school board meeting where the three changed their vote. THis secret meeting is ILLEGAL in the state of California and is also unethical. It demonstrates the very opposite of what character is. But please remember that these three Vista Trustees have received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the Teacher's union. Rumor is that the illegal meetings still take place. Please explain to me why those three are still on the board. When it comes to setting examples, the trustess should be the first ones to lead us. As a taxpayer, I feel these three trustees, Herrera, Chunka and Jaka represent the labor unions and not me, the taxpayer.
HERE'S WHY:
1) No one was "caught" violating state law or ethics. The claim was looked into and found to be without merit.
2) I was not at Mrs. Herrera's house at 1:30 that morning, I was in Oceanside, near the airport, giving a friend a ride home from the meeting (this can be confirmed by (name and phone number with held for privacy reasons by blog editor). This is public information, given at the March 5/March 12 board meetings (although (name with held by blog editor)'s personal information was not given).
3) The board meeting in question ended at 12:45 a.m., not 9:30 as the blogger claims. This is documented in the board minutes here: http://www.vusd.k12.ca.us/board/Board%20Meetings/2009/02-26-2009.pdf. I didn't get off the site until after 1:00 because so many people wanted to express their dissatisfaction with what had taken place. I doubt that anyone else got out much before 1:00 either.
4) After I dropped (name withheld for privacy by blog editor) at her home, I went by Mrs. Herrera's house to check on her because she was not answering her phone, and I knew her husband was out of town. I knew she was extremely stressed (we all were) and I wanted to make sure she was okay. I was surprised to find her driveway was full of cars, and there were a number of people present. Until I walked in however, I did not realize that Mrs. Chunka was also present and that I would be the third board member. At that point, I started to leave, but Mrs. Herrera left the room, remedying any violation. This obviously cannot be proven, but it is also public information that was given at the March 5 AND March 12 board meetings.
5) No one told me I "misvoted" after I arrived. The bulk of the conversation that I recall was about Read Across America, and the fact that I knew I would be facing some unhappy people when I came to their rooms to read the next day and the following Monday. I stated as much at the board meeting on March 12. Frankly, I was not interested in discussing my vote, nor would I have wanted to talk about undoing what we'd just spent six grueling hours doing (plus another two hours in Closed Session).
How would "VUSD Taxpayer" know what was discussed? He/she was clearly not there since all the statements of "fact" in the blog are incorrect.
6) Mrs. Herrera did NOT immediately call another meeting. The March 5 and March 12 meetings had been set for some time. On March 11, Mrs. Herrera did call for a special meeting to follow the regular meeting on March 12, so that we could vote on the issue one more time. This was a confirmation of the previous vote.
7) I changed my vote on March 5/12 only because the finance department came forward with an alternative to cutting Class Size Reduction. I had been to the finance office on February 27 to ask them to keep looking for other options. Mrs. Chunka did not change her vote. This is also public information, and can be found in the minutes for the March 5 meeting: http://www.vusd.k12.ca.us/board/Board%20Meetings/2009/03-05-2009.pdf On March 12, we voted to cut a buy-back day instead.
8) Although the unions did spend quite a bit of money on our campaigns, we did not receive 10s of thousands of dollars in contributions from them. They spent the money as they saw fit. That may seem like quibbling, but it's important to me. It's just as important to note that David Arnold, who tried to stop construction of our high schools, spent more than $63K on Guffanti's campaign in 2004. Although that is documented, I never see mention of it.
9) There are no secret, illegal meetings taking place. We showed poor judgment in being in the same place at the same time, and we have all publicly apologized for that, twice. Stating "Rumor is that the illegal meetings still take place" is libelous.
Blog Editor Note: I do not think any one showed poor judgment. There is NOTHING for Elizabeth or any one else to feel guilty about. Inadvertent path crossing by friends does not need to be apologized for. Had there been a plan for the three friends to meet, there still would have been nothing illegal or nefarious about such a meeting. In America friends are allowed to visit each other. Even had they planned to meet to discuss school business, the meeting is still not illegal under the Brown Act or any other state or federal law as long as the same discussion is held publicly at the next meeting. This is the conclusion of the North County Times reporter and his sources in the following article:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/03/06/news/coastal/vista/zafeb0db720418fa8882575710068a8e6.txt
If we did not live in a district with paranoid and nutty ANTI education zealots, no one would have cared.
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