You Can't Be a Little Bit Pregnant

The Florida Teacher of the Year who nonetheless was rated unsatisfactory in her annual evaluation is now part of a NEA lawsuit claiming that using test data in a Value Added Model (VAM) is unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, here in Washington, the WEA’s legislative priority is to “fully fund” and “fully implement” our version of a new evaluation system so that ”it succeeds as intended by the legislature.”

Unlike the Florida Education Association which is part of the lawsuit challenging evaluating teachers by using test scores, the Washington Education Association is up to its elbows in not only fashioning final legislation but also in devoting significant staff resources in facilitating state-wide implementation of an incredibly-cumbersome, time-consuming, and wholly unneeded evaluation system.

The argument from leadership is that because WEA was and is heavily involved leveraging our special relationship with Democrat politicans we now have an evaluation system that is less onerous, less dependent on testing, and more nuanced than it could have been. Basically, it's not as bad as it could have been.

You can’t be a little bit pregnant. Either we have an evaluation system that attempts to reduce teaching to a number and relies on student growth measures or we don’t.

WEA has foolishly colluded with those who seek to harm public educators and public education. We have given aid and comfort to those ideologues who believe that children are being prevented from learning by old, incompetent, over-protected, over-paid, and under-scrutinized teachers. The new evaluation system saturated with WEA’s fingerprints weakens due process, ends tenure, uses student growth measures (including testing), and provides teachers with a final summative rating—a number. There continue to be attempts in the legislature to emphasize student test scores because we--the preeminent guardian of public education--have whetted the appetites of those who believe that reform is the answer.

If ever there was a time where WEA should have said “We’re mad as hell and we’re not taking this anymore,” when WEA should have organized all 82,000 of its members to storm Olympia with a fiery outrage, it was in 2010 when 6696 and in 2012 when 5895 were being passed by the legislature. But, our leaders made a cold, short-sighted, far-reaching and dead-wrong calculation "to be part of the solution, to make it work"--to mitigate and parse injustice.

Those company candidates who voted in favor of trampling on our core values—and the WEA Board usually and dutifully votes unanimously--can hardly be expected to know when it’s time to say “enough is enough."

‘Enough is Enough’: Florida Teachers Sue to Block Flawed Evaluation System

Let's Remember Who Pays the Bills

The salary of the president of WEA is higher than that of 32 governors--$144,797 plus $59,754 in benefits. 

Why? 

We’ve been told that the WEA’s budget has been under strain due to a declining membership and stagnate wages. We’ve also been told that all of the 21 uniserv councils are similarly suffering, and that five in particular are in imminent danger of going flat-out bankrupt—my uniserv, 4th Corner, is one of the five. My uniserv delegates reported vague warnings sporadically throughout the year that finances were an issue, but no substantive information or proposal made its way to my membership until about a week before we were asked to vote on a 48% increase in dues to support the uniserv next year, and then another 15% increase the year after. Level V staff directors earn a maximum of $126,802 (plus the $59K in benefits) and 7 out of 10 Level V staff directors are at the maximum.

Now, I’m not suggesting that anyone is necessarily overpaid. My association has received excellent service from various staff directors assigned to us and from the central office as well—when, from time to time, we’ve needed assistance. I have to be honest in that except for assistance in bargaining, grievances, contract maintenance, and separation agreements provided by staff directors, our uniserv council itself does not materially or positively affect the members of my local.

I am, however, strongly suggesting that we keep in mind who pays the bills. A beginning teacher earns a base pay of $33,618; a beginning paraeducator in my district makes $13.31 an hour. We also need to live within our means. In my local, we made reductions and economies when our membership declined. We did not raise dues.

One of the challenges of the next WEA president is strengthening local leadership, reorganizing uniserv councils while most likely reducing staff or salaries or benefits.

We Don't Need a New Way to Evaluate Teachers

On Thursday, my superintendent announced that he is leaving either through retirement or accepting a new position. In meeting with him to discuss the transition to new leadership, we discussed various issues, the new evaluation system being prominent. Like me, he does not believe that another unfunded mandate from the legislature, unnecessarily bureaucratized by OSPI , and endorsed by WEA is either welcome or needed. Like me, he is not a Kool-aid drinker, not one enamored by ed reform’s latest bauble. Unlike most of his superintendent colleagues and those who are piloting the new evaluation program, he believes we should seek the barest, most minimal implementation--that which, in his phrasing, will keep the black helicopters from visiting Oak Harbor.

Since June of last year when the legislature passed Senate Bill 5895, I have spent the majority of my focused time as a local leader on implementing the new evaluation system in Oak Harbor. I have spent dozens and dozens and dozens of hours

• Researching and learning about the legislation
• Familiarizing myself with OSPI’s T-PEP website
• Preparing and leading a presentation to my school board in June
• Preparing and leading a presentation with my HR director to every school in the fall
• Attending six full days of the T-PEP RIG process in Anacortes
• Attending a half-day presentation by leaders of the Anacortes pilot program—leaders who are marinated in Kool-aid
• Attending a full day training by WEA in Bellingham
• Preparing and leading a follow-up presentation to my school board this month
• About to attend four full days to practice evaluating using the 5-Dimensions instructional framework
• Meeting eight times with my head bargainer and the HR director and then spending time after each meeting to produce rough drafts to write contractual language for the Association’s and district’s negotiations teams in time for the start of bargaining on April 11
• Scheduling, preparing and then leading follow-up presentations to every school this May
• Supporting my negotiations team as they bargain evaluation language

As my departing superintendent and I lamented, there is absolutely nothing in the new system that could not have been accomplished in the old, admitted-clunky and imprecise system. Almost all teachers are satisfactory. Those who are not can be made to improve by the old system. Old procedures contained plans of improvement that worked. Those who do not improve usually see the handwriting on the wall and the Association helps them leave the profession or seek employment elsewhere in a dignified manner.

I happened to be watching CNN’s Your Money this morning, and saw a series of charts showing that American workers have increased productivity and created more wealth the past several decades but have found their wages stagnated. A billionaire Wall Street investor then commented that the problem with this picture is the failed American public education system.

Really? If the products of our schools are so damaged by incompetent teachers than why has productivity and wealth risen?

We don’t need a new teacher evaluation system. It is a colossal waste of time, effort and money, and has diverted energies away from meeting the needs of students. WEA’s leadership should be ashamed to be part of this debacle.

One of my teacher colleagues sent me the following link to a fantastic but deeply sad letter of resignation from a teacher in New York who resigned because he couldn’t take the effects of ed reform any longer: “I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me. It no longer exists.”

We can do better. WEA must do better.

Teacher's Resignation Letter

WEA-RA Delegate Materials

As delegates begin preparing for the WEA-RA which is less than two weeks away, they will have campaign material from each of the candidates. Here is information in the flyer that I prepared for delegate packets:

I believe

• We should fight with every fiber of our being and every tool available to us against the new evaluation system. TPEP attempts to reduce teaching to a number to separate those who conform to a corporate model from those who do not. It is fundamentally at odds with our core values.

• The WEA Board is dangerously wrong in its legislative priority to “fully implement” and “fully fund” the new evaluation system. By helping those who at best are misguided and at worst maleficent, the WEA is squandering its potential and duty to protect our profession.

• WEA leaders should lead. Current WEA leaders assert that the best organizational strategy is to capitalize on grassroots efforts. I disagree. Without a well-thought out and vetted plan, we underutilize our power. Whereas I admire whenever my colleagues in the field achieve local success—like the Garfield teachers who said “no” to at least one assessment—we as an organization would have much more influence if that one wildcat action was part of a systematic and coordinated effort. WEA leaders should do more, much more than just be part of photo-ops or to waste, year after year, our time at RAs presiding over debates about what color t-shirt we should wear on what day.

• The WEA should be a professional, non-partisan organization. We should not be a wing of the Democratic Party. Many of our members are either Republicans, not Democrats, or unaffiliated. We should hold elected officials accountable to our agenda and our core values, regardless of party.

• We should oppose the education reform movement. It has damaged public education, demoralized good teachers, shortchanged students, and has absolved parents, lawmakers, students themselves, and others from performing their vital roles. Narrowing the curriculum, devolving learning experiences to endless vats of data, obsessing over assessments, ignoring creativity and individuality, and scapegoating teachers should rally the WEA to an outraged and potent militancy.

• “Failing schools” and “bad teachers” are a manufactured hoax that skilled, relentless, and powerful adversaries have foisted on the public. We have been insufficiently skilled, relentless, and powerful in response.

Enough.

I am not an establishment candidate. I have not made a career in the WEA bureaucracy. I am a full-time classroom teacher in my 31st year of teaching. I’ve also been my local association’s president for ten years, and have been active in regional, state, and national issues as they relate to public education.

Everett Herald Article

Szalai, 54, lives in Coupeville and is a social studies teacher at Oak Harbor Middle School. While he pledged to make the WEA more proactive, unlike the others he faulted the current leadership for ceding valuable ground to reformers.

He said he joined the race after the WEA embraced a new statewide policy of evaluating teacher performance using student test scores and other numeric measures.

"I do not believe you can reduce teaching to a number," he said. "I don't think that's possible and even if it was possible I don't think it would be healthy."

He's set three goals: to repeal the new evaluation system, to reorient the WEA as a nonpartisan professional organization "and not as a wing of the Democratic Party" and to push for its agenda rather than react to that of others.

"We have given aid and comfort to bad ideas. I think we have damaged education," he said. "I think there comes a time to say no."

"Three in race to lead teachers union," 4/8/13 Everett Herald

Enough of Ed Reform

I sent the following letter to Lynne K. Varner tonight in response to her April 4th column in the Seattle Times entitled "Time for Washington Education Association to do a self-exam" where she mentioned my candidacy to be president of WEA:

"Hi Lynne,

While I appreciate the rather unexpected inclusion of my candidacy in your column last week, I wanted to take a moment to clarify why I am running to be president of WEA.  For it seems that you are under the impression that I seek to move WEA towards an 'all ed reform, all the time' position.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

I feel that ed reform has been a net negative, has damaged public education.  By any measure of value, ed reform is now synonymous with dubious or deleterious effects.  Examples include diverting money away from public schools to charter schools, narrowing the curriculum, devaluing the fine arts, marginalizing social studies and P.E. and career and technical education, fomenting an obsession with testing, unnecessarily siphoning funds from curriculum or student support to professional development, scapegoating teachers, and absolving students, parents, society, and pundits (such as yourself) from their vital roles in what must be a partnership in order for success to be achieved.

Far from wanting WEA to move any closer to embracing ed reform—I’m nauseated by my union’s embrace of the new teacher evaluation system, for example—I instead fervor for a clear-headed and full-throated stewardship of what makes teaching fundamentally complex and individual and wonderful.  The Seattle Times continuous editorial bias embracing ed reform is simplistic, dangerous, and ignorant. 

When I first started teaching 30 years ago, I chose to be a fee payer, believing that only weak teachers needed the protection of the union.  Within a year—as a non-tenured, non-union employee—I chose to file a grievance against my employer for violating the terms of the contract by exceeding class size limits in a school-wide reading program.  Since I was provisional, I could have been non-renewed—fired at the end of the year.  But I stood on conviction and I learned the value of a union, collective bargaining, and the resulting working conditions and benefits that provided all teachers—even non-members—with basic protections.  My grievance was denied but the conditions were alleviated (a common administrative tactic—fix the problem while admitting no wrong) and I subsequently joined the union.

Now I am running to lead the state union—not to 'bring more congency to reform discussions' but to stand on conviction, to finally draw a line in the sand and say, 'Enough.'

Peter Szalai
Teacher"

Time for Washington Education Association to do a self-exam

Candidacy Information

To learn more about my candidacy or to help:

YouTube Video Introduction

Facebook Page: Elect Peter Szalai WEA President

Email

WEA-RA Website Candidate Statements

Contributions to my campaign are welcome. Checks are made out to "Elect Peter Szalai" and sent to 732 Palisades Dr., Coupeville, WA 98239. Thank you.