June 16, 2010 Consutation Meeting

On Wednesday (6/16/10) at a specially called Instructional Consultation meeting the district, represented by Anne Best, revealed a new partnership agreement with Teach For America that will increase the number of TFA teachers from 150 to 250. According to the board agenda item:

“During the 2010-2011 school year as many as 250 Teach For America teachers will teach in some of our most challenging assignments in an effort to help students make greater than expected progress in one year.”

The total cost of this agreement is $1.7 million. $700,000 will come from Title 1 Part A funds and will be used to fund 200 corps members. $1,000,000 will come from 2010-2011 HISD general funds and will “fund 50 additional corps members for Apollo 20 schools”. Apollo 20 schools are the nine secondary schools that have recently been targeted by HISD for transformation due to low performance. This past Friday HISD informed 162 teachers from these schools that they will not be invited back to those schools in the fall nor would they be eligible to teach at any of the other Apollo 20 schools. Of 100 extra TFA teachers provided for in this agreement, half of them are designated for Apollo 20 schools. It is worth repeating that these 50 teachers, are going to cost HISD taxpayers $1,000,000 above and beyond their salaries and benefits.

These 50 Apollo 20 TFA members will be on a separate list and are designated for the Apollo 20 schools. The district emphasized the principals of theses schools (it is worth noting that as of this writing most of these schools do not yet have a named principal for next year) will not be forced to take these teachers. HFT expects every one of them to be placed. While the district was unable to give us a specific breakdown by school of how many teachers were asked not to return, they did say that only two of them were from Ryan Middle School. This means that the 50 TFA members will be spread around the other nine schools but it is likely some schools will have a larger number than others.

The district did make some commitments to the 162 displaced teachers. First of all they all are under contract and have jobs for next year. These teachers will not be bound by the normal transfer rule meaning they may receive a transfer at any time. The district will hold job fairs for these teachers. The first will be held at Lamar HS on Friday June 18, 2010. The teachers are free to place themselves at any school that is willing to accept them up until August 9^th, the first day of the new contract year. The district does not yet know where unplaced teachers are to report on that date. The district also emphasized that the displaced teachers were chosen because they did not fit the Apollo 20 model, not because they were bad teachers. It was stated that principals have been told that there should be no stigma attached to these teachers and they are perfectly acceptable to be hired. No principal however, will be forced to hire these teachers; the district will not place them at any school. When we asked for the rubric that was used to determine which teachers did not fit the Apollo 20 model, we were told that none was used.

HFT obviously has several problems with this plan:

• There was no standard used to displace 162 teachers. These teachers were all good enough to be offered a contract, but not acceptable to teach at these schools. They were never told what they had done wrong or what they needed to change. Despite the district claim that they are not stigmatized, we don’t believe it. We think these teachers will for the most part; find it very difficult to find a new school.
• What is the plan for these teachers who do not find schools before the start of school?
• Each of these teachers were experienced professionals but at least 50 of them will be replaced with Teach For America members who have little training and no classroom experience. How can this be a model for improvement?
• We are very concerned that some schools will have a disproportionately large number of inexperienced teachers. Who will be available to train and mentor these teachers on a daily basis?
• Teach For America is very expensive. Could that $1,000,000 been used to support the current teachers? We think so.

HFT honors individual who choose to teach. We believe however; that teaching is a professional commitment and not a temporary vocation. It takes years to figure out what does and does not work in the classroom. There is no magic formula, no teach by the numbers guide. Each child is an individual; the different individuals interacting inside a classroom make each class different. TFA teachers are for the most part bright, enthusiastic, young, not burdened with family responsibilities of their own, and clueless about how to teach the entire child instead of training them to take a test. After the end of their two-year commitment most leave and the cycle of teacher learning begins for some other teacher. Those that stay, who make the long-term professional commitment, usually go on to become excellent teachers. Experience means everything. The HISD plan makes experience a liability and emphasizes change for the sake of change. It is in on way a long-term solution, but instead it is a short-term change done to appease those who are shouting that some change needs to take place.