MHFT Community Outreach Meetings
Sunday, May 18th
1:30-3:00 pm at St. Catherine’s
(after Spanish mass)
Thursday, May 29th
7-8:30 pm at El Toro Youth Center
Our schools, teachers, and union have been publicly attacked this year. It is important for us to counter the negative image that has been created and reach out to build positive relationships with our community and let families know that we do indeed care about the success of all of our students. Please consider attending one of these events. We especially need teachers who speak Spanish.
MHFT General Meeting
Thursday, May 8 3:30 Social
4:00 Meeting
location tba
Please plan on joining your colleagues for some good cheer and important updates!
Mushroom Mardi Gras
Saturday, May 24 (10am - 7pm)
Sunday, May 25 (10am - 6pm)
The district will be sponsoring a table at this community event, and are seeking teachers to adopt a shift. This is a great way for you to showcase your classroom, grade level team or department, club or student team! Please email Theresa Sage at tsmhft@garlic.com to sign up. Maybe bring a team from your site, and show the community some of the great things that are happening at your school.
Great Idea of the Month!
San Martin/Gwinn is entering a float in Morgan Hill’s 4th of July Parade. What a wonderful way to promote their school!
District Budget Input
Give your input now or forever hold your peace! As the district creates the LCAP plan that will govern the budget for the next three years, they are looking for staff input. This is your opportunity to influence things that matter! Please complete the online survey at
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/187sTv-LnLpJzUWar_Pw03DANaRZTlcIfLzzMGSfV4zY/viewform by this Friday, May 2. If you would like to know more about this, please look for the email you received from Fawn Myers.
Diane Ravitch’s Blog Update on problems facing Rocketship Education is at the very end of this newsletter.
Teachers of the Year!
Congratulations to the following teachers for being selected by their colleagues as Teacher of the Year for their sites. One of these teachers will go on as Morgan Hill’s Teacher of the Year to the Santa Clara County celebration in the fall. The winner will be announced at the May 8 MHFT General Meeting, as well as at the May 27 MHUSD Board Meeting, and all of these teachers will be honored at both meetings.
Angela Santiago (Barrett)
Jewel Knofler (El Toro)
Sue Sholer (JAMM)
Kelly Patterson (Los Paseos)
Rosemary Muñoz (Nordstrom)
Jennifer Kingman (Paradise Valley)
Nancy Moore (San Martin-Gwinn)
Senida Burns (Walsh)
Vincent Gutierrez (Britton)
Kate Berryhill (Martin Murphy)
Walt Henzi (Central)
Brett Paolucci (Live Oak)
Zann Yates (Sobrato)
TK - K - 1 Class Size Reduction
The district will be reducing TK, K, and 1st grade class sizes to a 24:1 ratio at all schools in the fall.
Layoffs
While four teachers received pink slips this year, in the end we will be losing only one teacher to layoffs. The district is cutting one middle school art position, and there will be some transfers between secondary sites as a result. The affected teachers are already aware of the situation.
Four Board Seats up for Election in November
We need quality candidates to run for these seats, who are committed to quality public education and will be strong enough to stand up to the ongoing assault on our neighborhood schools. If you know of a local resident who would be a great board member, please email Theresa Sage.
Thanks to MHFT/District Committee Volunteers
We want to thank all of our colleagues who have volunteered to sit on joint MHFT/District committees to make recommendations regarding this year’s negotiations. The Salary, Stipend, and Health Care committees have all met for the first time, and will be continuing to meet until their work is done. We know that everyone is busy at this time of year, so we appreciate the time they are giving.
Health Care Committee
MHFT Members: Chris Mink (Walsh + Los Paseos), Lori Shoemaker (Los Paseos), Amanda Knudtzon (JAMM), Jennifer Kingman (Paradise Valley), Jim Levis (Britton), Terri Eves-Knudsen (Sobrato), Ken Repp (Live Oak), Donna Ruebusch (retiree), and Theresa Sage (MHFT President). (This committee also has SEIU and MHELA members.)
Salary Committee
MHFT members: Andrea Pecsok (JAMM), Nancy Altman (Britton), Gemma Abels (BTSA), Mary Alice Callahan (Sobrato), and Theresa Sage (MHFT President). (This committee also has District Office staff.)
Stipend Committee
MHFT Members: Teresa Colbert (Barrett), Melissa Moralez (San Martin-Gwinn), Andrea Pecsok (JAMM), Lori Ross (Los Paseos), Lori Shoemaker (Los Paseos), Teresa Sermersheim (Walsh), Kerry Richards (Nordstrom), Jennifer Kingman (Paradise Valley), Alex Aasen (Martin Murphy), Nancy Altman (Britton), Leslie Anderson (Britton), Vincent Gutierrez (Britton), Joe Guinane (Murphy), Gemma Abels (BTSA), Howard Barnes (Sobrato), Jeff Bernstein (Sobrato), Sandra Briley (Sobrato), Mark Cummins (Live Oak), Veronica Diaz (Live Oak), Sarah Guthrie (Sobrato), Mack Haines (Live Oak), Erin Larrus (Live Oak), Joe Martin(Sobrato), Bill Row (Live Oak), Theresa Sage (MHFT President). (This committee also has District Office staff and MHELA members.)
New Student Information System Sought
Hallelujah! The district is currently researching new options for a Student Information System to replace our current eSchool system for attendance, grades and transcripts. They have selected three vendors to give presentations to a small group of administrators and teachers in April. We believe there will be a larger meeting for a wider group of employees to provide additional feedback as well. Please let your Building Rep know if you are interested in joining this process.
Those currently serving on this committee are:
K = Lynn Briones (Walsh)
1-3 = Jennifer Niemann (El Toro)
4-6 = Jennifer Kingman (Paradise Valley)
7-8 = Alex Aasen (Murphy)
9-12 = Bill Row (Live Oak)
Alternative high school = Elisa Barragan (Central)
Counseling = Andrea Bird (Sobrato)
MHFT Staff 2014-2015
A big huge THANK YOU to Steve Spencer, who will be retiring from the office this summer, for all of his years of service, dedication, and humor. We will miss Steve as a regular presence in the office, though he will still be doing some consulting for us. We are excited to add Lori Shoemaker and Andrea Kusanovich to the team of Gemma Abels, Terri Knudsen, and Theresa Sage.
Teachers at the Mic
Wow, great job Amanda Knudtzon from JAMM, and the team from San Martin-Gwinn! Next up is Barrett (May 13). If you would like to help present, please contact your Building Rep. Otherwise, please plan to attend to support your school. It is very important that we continue to showcase the learning that is going on at all of our district schools.
MHFT Newsletter Format - Your Input Requested
It is important to us that our newsletters be in a format that is accessible to you, and results in the greatest readership. This particular newsletter is in a pretty simply style - no fancy columns, graphics, or colors. Is this best? Do you normally just read the cut-and-paste version in the text of the email anyway, or do you usually open the attachment? Do you prefer the columns, graphics, and colors? Please either give your feedback to your Building Rep, or email Jeanie at WallaceJ@mhusd.org. I am happy to add the colors and other special features, if it helps you stay awake after school to read through it all! But if it is just a nuisance to open, I will stick with this simpler style. (If you are a Building Rep, please check in with as many people as possible to get this feedback.)
We have some raffle winners!
Shelly Ware (El Toro) and Jennifer Smith (Nordstrom) have each won a ream of colored paper for reading their newsletters all the way to the end! Jenn Abberton is the Community LCAP outreach winner, and will receive a $25 Target gift card.
AFT Call to Action: Tell Pearson Education to Lift the Gag Order on Common Core Assessment Concerns
Please see AFT President Randi Weingarten’s letter below.
Diane Ravitch’s Blog Update on problems facing Rocketship Education is at the very end of this newsletter.
Theresa,
Right now—7AM ET on April 25th—the AFT’s chief of staff and one of our researchers are in London working to change the culture of high-stakes standardized testing here in America.
They’re attending the annual shareholders meeting of Pearson Education, the largest for-profit education, testing and book publishing company in the world, demanding that the company remove contractual “gag orders” that prevent educators from talking about Pearson’s tests, and asking Pearson to sit down with parents, teachers, principals and students to address legitimate concerns about these tests.
Tell Pearson’s board of directors to lift the gag orders and work with stakeholders to fix their broken tests.
In New York, teachers and principals who administered Pearson’s Common Core-related assessments have raised red flags about test content that isn’t age-appropriate and doesn’t align with student learning. But, because of a gag order written into the contract, educators are forbidden from discussing the content or quality of the tests—they can’t even tell parents what’s on the test their children are taking.
There are many other examples like this across the country.
The gag orders don’t help students learn or help schools improve—their only obvious purpose is to protect the corporation’s interests. That’s not right. Pearson’s secretive tests have huge consequences for students and their families, teachers, schools and communities. The tests need to assess what students have learned—they need to be accurate, properly aligned and fair. That’s why transparency is so important and this gag order is so wrong.
Our children are not test scores, and our teachers are not algorithms. We need to stop this testing fixation, change the culture of high-stakes testing and hold the corporations that are profiting from these tests accountable. The Pearson shareholders meeting is a perfect time to demand that Pearson be accountable to our schools and communities. Pearson’s gag order is not in the best interests of children, teachers or schools.
Accountability goes both ways. Stand with us to tell Pearson and the company’s board of directors to drop the gag order and work with stakeholders to make the tests transparent and fair.
Educators know what our children need in the classroom. Their voices should be respected by the companies paid by public dollars to create and score tests, not silenced by gag orders.
I hope you’ll stand with us,
In unity,
Randi Weingarten
AFT President
P.S. You can read the full letter we delivered to Pearson’s board here.
Rocketship Charters Have a Bumpy Ride in Nashville: Follow the Money
by dianeravitch
Rocketship Charters are planning to open in Nashville and Memphis, but there have been a few problems along the way.
Lisa Fingeroot of the Nashville Ledger writes that the for-profit corporation,which relies on computers to cut costs, has experienced a dramatic decline in its test scores in the past few years. Once hailed as the "next big thing" because of its high scores, that reputation has melted away, as this article shows.
Fingeroot writes:
Rocketship opened its first elementary school in California in 2008 and earned a national reputation for success with a “blended” learning model in which students spend a part of the day learning online while supervised by an aide instead of a certified teacher. The rest of the students’ day takes place in a traditional classroom.
The online learning program allows a 50-to-one student-teacher ratio, has come under fire from educators and has contributed to a drop in test scores for Rocketship students, documents show.
Even though California-based Rocketship will abandon the online program, Kristoffer Haines, senior vice president of growth and development, is accusing critics of distorting company goals by wrongly claiming the online program was designed simply to cut costs so more money could be syphoned from each individual school and used to fuel company expansion into more states.
Rocketship’s learning model has found support among many of the nation’s education reform spokesmen, including former Florida Gov. and potential Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, who promote the use of computers as a method to individualize student instruction.
But Rocketship took a public relations hit earlier this year when the California Department of Education released test scores showing a steady decline in student test scores between the 2008-09 and 2012-13 school years. During that period, the company grew from one to seven schools and also implemented the higher student-teacher ratio pilot.
The test scores, calculated at the request of Education Week, a national trade magazine for educators, show a correlation between growth of the company and incremental drops in test scores.
But Rocketship officials downplay the scores and blame the drop on the online pilot program, which they say will be nixed before the Nashville school opens for the 2014-15 school year.
The company spokesmen boast of "phenomenal results," but "the results calculated by California officials for Education Week show the percentage of Rocketship students who scored proficient or better in English/language arts dropped by 30 percentage points in five years, and the number scoring that well in math dropped by more than 14 percentage points."
In another article, Fingeroot disclosed that Rocketship had been siphoning funds from charters in one state to finance the opening of new charters in other states.
She writes:
A national charter school group tapped to open schools in both Nashville and Memphis is dumping plans to syphon money from its schools here and in California to finance expansion into other states, a company official says.
The plan by Rocketship Education to use tax dollars collected in one state to finance the opening of schools in another state has elected officials and charter school observers questioning whether the move is legal.
But that plan has been scrapped and will be replaced in May with a similar business model that shows money will not be moved from state to state, says Kristoffer Haines, senior vice president of growth and development.
Revenues generated at a Nashville school, however, could be used to help jumpstart another Rocketship school in Nashville, he adds.
Even that kind of money movement isn’t winning points from Metro Nashville school board member Will Pinkston, a vocal opponent of unrestricted charter school growth.
“Any charter operator needs to be keeping those dollars in the school and not using them to fund growth inside or outside the community,” Pinkston says.
The Metro school board has approved one Rocketship charter school, but the company has plans to ask for at least one more in Nashville.
Rocketship does not need local approval, though, because it has state approval to take over failing schools in both Nashville and Memphis through the Achievement School District established to improve Tennessee schools performing in the bottom five percent of all schools.
The Rocketship plan to fuel growth through local schools called for cutting staff to save money, and taking an additional $200,000 per year from each of the company’s existing schools to use as seed money.
“It’s called ‘cross subsidization,’ and whether it is legal or not is very questionable,” says Gary Miron, an education professor at Western Michigan University whose research includes the monitoring of more than 300 charter schools around the United States.
“Why would taxpayers in Tennessee want to pay for schools in another state,” he asks.
The plan was first found on the company’s website, but was removed when it became ammunition in a California neighborhood fight over whether Rocketship would be allowed to open a second school in the community.
Haines accuses The Rocketship plan to fuel growth through local schools called for cutting staff to save money, and taking an additional $200,000 per year from each of the company’s existing schools to use as seed money.
“It’s called ‘cross subsidization,’ and whether it is legal or not is very questionable,” says Gary Miron, an education professor at Western Michigan University whose research includes the monitoring of more than 300 charter schools around the United States.
“Why would taxpayers in Tennessee want to pay for schools in another state,” he asks.
The plan was first found on the company’s website, but was removed when it became ammunition in a California neighborhood fight over whether Rocketship would be allowed to open a second school in the community.
Haines accuses critics of distorting the information and called the plan “outdated” because much of it was based on an old 2010 plan that was meant only for California schools and only to fund additional California schools, he explains.
In yet a third article, Fingeroot shows how "nonprofit" charter chains are very profitable through real estate transactions and high salaries.
She writes:
Even though a plan to allow for-profit charter school management companies in Tennessee is dead for the current legislative session, the “Educational Industrial Complex” is still cranking out profits, says the professor who coined the phrase.
“There’s not much difference in profit and nonprofits,” says Gary Miron, an education professor at Western Michigan University and a member of the National Education Policy Center in Colorado who studies and monitors charter schools.
“At the end of the year they can clear profits by putting it into salaries and bonuses for executives,’’ he explains.
Funds also can be moved or paid into a web of for-profit sister companies that have contracts with the nonprofit charter school.
“It’s really a scam,” Miron says of the many different scenarios that can be used. “To really follow the money, you would have to really understand the facilities companies.”
Miron is particularly wary of the real estate deals like those currently being seen in Nashville and Memphis.
In Nashville, the new Rocketship Education school building on Dickerson Pike is being built by a hedge fund company owned by tennis star Andre Agassi. Investors in the company provide financing for construction, and the company acts as a mortgage holder.
Each Rocketship school pays between 12 and 20 percent of its budget to the main Rocketship company for a facilities fee. The money is then used for the mortgage payment, says Kristoffer Haines, senior vice president of growth and development.
For the company’s California schools, the fee is about 18 percent. He anticipates a facilities fee in the high teens for the new Nashville school.
In the end, Rocketship will own the building and “the taxpayer’s interest is not protected,” Miron says. If the charter school closes, the building is still owned by the company, even though it was paid for with tax dollars via facilities fees.
“We’re seeing more and more of this,” Miron adds.
Nationally, the charter school failure rate is estimated to be about 15 percent.
For investing in a school project, investors are given tax credits as high as 39 percent, which allows them to double their money within seven years, says Metro Nashville school board member Amy Frogge, an active opponent of for-profit charter schools.
It’s an attractive enticement for hedge fund managers, who have begun flocking to Memphis charter schools to get their share, she adds.
The question is whether taxpayers expect their tax money to reduce class size and pay for art teachers, social workers, school nurses, and other kinds of direct school enrichment, or whether they know they are enriching hedge fund managers, investors, and executives of charter chains.
dianeravitch | April 15, 2014 at 7:00 am | Categories: Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Tennessee | URL: http://wp.me/p2odLa-7F9
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The Morgan Hill Teacher is edited by Jeanie Wallace, who teaches at Sobrato and is a past MHFT Staff Rep.