Council finds states weakening teacher tenure

WASHINGTON (AP) ? America's public school teachers are seeing their generations-old tenure protections weakened as states seek flexibility to fire teachers who aren't performing. A few states have essentially nullified tenure protections altogether, according to an analysis being released Wednesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

The changes are occurring as states replace virtually automatic "satisfactory" teacher evaluations with those linked to teacher performance and base teacher layoffs on performance instead of seniority. Politically powerful teachers' unions are fighting back, arguing the changes lower morale, deny teachers due process, and unfairly target older teachers.

The debate is so intense that in Idaho, for example, state superintendent Tom Luna's truck was spray painted and its tires slashed. An opponent appeared at his mother's house and he was interrupted during a live TV interview by an agitated man. Why? The Idaho legislature last year ended "continuing contracts" ? essentially equivalent to tenure ? for new teachers and said performance, not seniority, would determine layoffs. Other changes include up to $8,000 in annual bonuses given to teachers for good performance, and parent input on evaluations. Opponents gathered enough signatures to put a referendum that would overturn the changes on the November ballot.

Luna says good teachers shouldn't be worried.

"We had a system where it was almost impossible to financially reward great teachers and very difficult to deal with ineffective teachers. If you want an education system that truly puts students first, you have to have both," Luna said.

On Tuesday night, President Barack Obama weighed in on the issue during his State of the Union address. He said schools should be given the resources to keep and reward good teachers along with the flexibility to teach with creativity and to "replace teachers who just aren't helping kids learn."

Tenure protections were created in the early 20th century to protect teachers from arbitrary or discriminatory firings based on factors such as gender, nationality or political beliefs by spelling out rules under which they could be dismissed after a probationary period.

Critics say teachers too often get tenure by just showing up for work ? typically for three years, but sometimes less, and that once they earned it, bad teachers are almost impossible or too expensive to fire. The latest statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics, dating to the 2007-2008 school year, show about 2 percent of teachers dismissed for poor performance, although the numbers vary widely by school district.

The analysis by the National Council on Teacher Quality, a research and policy group that seeks to improve the quality of teaching, documents the shift in laws. In 2009, no state required student performance to be central to whether a teacher is awarded tenure; today, eight states do. The analysis also says four states now want evidence that students are learning before awarding tenure.

Other changes:

? In Florida, tenure protections were essentially made null and void with policy changes such as eliminating tenure-like benefits altogether for new teachers, but also spelling out requirements under which all teachers with multiple poor evaluations face dismissal.

? Rhode Island policies say teachers with two years of ineffective evaluations will be dismissed.

? Colorado and Nevada passed laws saying tenure can be taken away after multiple "ineffective" ratings.

? Eleven states now require districts to consider teacher performance when deciding who to let go.

? About half of all states have policies that require classroom effectiveness be considered in teacher evaluations.

? Florida, Indiana and Michigan adopted policies that require performance to be factored in teacher salaries.

A growing body of research demonstrates the dramatic difference effective teachers can play in student lives, from reducing teenage pregnancies to increasing a student's lifetime earnings. Meanwhile, while controversial, teacher evaluations have evolved in a way that proponents say allows better accounting of students' growth and of factors out of a teacher's control, like attendance.

The Obama administration has helped nudge the changes with its Race to the Top competition, which allowed states to compete for billions of education dollars, and offering states waivers around unpopular proficiency requirements in the No Child Left Behind education law. To participate in either, states have to promise changes such as tying teacher evaluations to performance.

"There's a real shift to saying all kids, especially our most disadvantaged kids, have access to really high quality and effective teachers. And, that's it's not OK for kids to have ... an ineffective teacher year after year," said Sandi Jacobs, vice president of the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Jacobs said tenure should be meaningful, but that in 39 states it's automatic.

"That's the problem with tenure, everybody gets it," she said. "If you're held to a high bar where you've really demonstrated that you are effective in the classroom, then there's nothing wrong with that as long as the due process rights that you do get are reasonable."

But many teachers feel under siege. They argue the evaluation systems are too dependent on standardized tests. While teachers' unions have gotten more on board with strengthening teacher evaluations, they often question the systems' fairness and want them designed with local teachers' input.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said unions understand the tenure process needs change, but that too often, school administrators have used it as an excuse to mismanage. "They want teachers to basically do exactly what they say, give them no resources and then blame them if they don't in a time of tremendous fiscal instability and fiscal pressures," Weingarten said.

In Boise, Idaho, Lane Brown, 56, a biology and horticulture teacher who moved from a private school a few years ago to a public alternative high school to seek new challenges after three decades of teaching, said her school's climate has dramatically changed.

"There's nobody in this building that doesn't understand it could be one of us, not just the newest teacher or the teacher with the fewest number of students. It could be anybody, ... which is scary. Every teacher here is saying, 'I don't know if I'm going to have a job next year,'" Brown said.

In Florida, teachers fear expressing what they feel is best for students, said Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association.

"Teachers see positions not being filled, class sizes increasing, more demands, more testing, and you add all that together with their economic uncertainty about continued employment and it certainly doesn't allow you to go out and plan for long term investments like a home," Ford said.

Kathy Hebda, the deputy chancellor for education quality in Florida, said the contract-related changes were not done in "isolation," but as part of broader changes that improve accountability and provide teachers feedback.

Michelle Rhee, the former schools chancellor in Washington, D.C., acknowledged widespread mistrust among teachers about evaluations, but she said once teachers are brought into discussions, many are won over.

"If we know who the effective teachers are, if we know what kind of an impact effective teachers can have on individual kids and on our society overall, then why wouldn't we take the obvious step of utilizing the information on who are the most effective teachers to make our staffing decisions?" said Rhee, whose education advocacy group StudentsFirst is pushing for changes to layoff policies based on seniority.

Coming up, Missouri legislators appear poised to take up the contentious topic of teacher tenure. In Connecticut, the Connecticut Education Association launched a TV advertising campaign after Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and legislative leaders said education reform ? and possibly tenure ? will be the major focus of this legislative session. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie, both Republicans, are eyeing tenure law changes.

"Tenure laws will be under assault for many years to come," said Marjorie Murphy, a professor of history at Swarthmore College who wrote a book about the teacher labor movement. Murphy said ending tenure protections will "take over any sense of fair play between employer and employee. All of that will be gone."

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National Council on Teacher Quality: http://www.nctq.org/

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Chris Blank in Jefferson City, Mo., and Jessie Bonner in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-25-Teacher%20Tenure/id-db3023df347345078788ba3f248a27fa

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Lisa Wexler: Mitt Romney Needs a Hillary Clinton Cry

On Saturday night Mitt Romney delivered essentially the same speech to South Carolina voters that he did to New Hampshire voters. The only trouble is that Mitt won in New Hampshire, whereas he lost in South Carolina. Everyone knows that you feel differently when you win than when you lose. Where is the pathos? Where is the regret? Where is the disappointment? I didn't see any on Saturday night. If you listened without knowing the results, you might be convinced that in fact Mitt Romney had actually won tonight, rather than lose by a stunningly large margin in a state where he led the polls just a week ago. A normal person, a relatable person, would have come on the stage and said, "Well, I blew it. I'm sorry. And by the way, here are my tax returns!" The crowd would have laughed, would have roared, would have forgiven, and would now be raring to go fight the fight in Florida. Instead, what did we hear? We heard a man who put a good face on defeat, who believes that by looking good and sounding optimistic, he can win over the crowd.

In many ways, Mitt Romney strikes me as old fashioned, a candidate from the 1950s. This is a man who thinks hard. This is a man who shields his personal life from public view as much as he can, despite running for president. This is a man who has genuinely lived a life of traditional family values, and therefore does not feel the need to brag about them. This is a man who shirks from cheap shots to his opponents, who prefers to take the high road in running for the highest public office we have. These are not bad qualities, and in fact I admire them. But 60 years have passed since Eisenhower led, and today Americans prefer candidates who feel, rather than candidates that think. Ask Hillary Clinton, and she'll tell you. Hillary Clinton pulled her win in the New Hampshire primary of 2008 because she cried, not because she thought. Her tears proved to us that she was a real person, rather than a robot set on autopilot, giving speech after speech about public policy issues. We wanted a human being, someone who understood our pain. We already knew how well Hillary could think; we wanted to be sure that she could also feel.

When Mitt Romney answered "Maybe" in response to Jon King's question as to whether he would release his tax returns, Mitt sealed his own fate in the South Carolina primary. Not only was it the wrong answer to the question, more importantly the answer played into the narrative of a man with something to hide. The most consistent attack on Mitt Romney, and the one that sticks, is that he is a man who does not reveal his true self. On issues like abortion, gay rights and health care, we think we know where he stands today but he hasn't convinced us that his change of heart has been anything other than political opportunism. Mitt's devotion to the Mormon faith confirms this storyline as well, because Mormonism is a religion which shrouds itself in secrecy, revealing its innermost traditions only to the most "worthy" practitioners of the faith. When confronted about these issues, Mitt is enigmatic, obscuring his own self in pious language that does not ring true. Why doesn't that language ring true? Because Mitt is not talking in the kind of language we are now accustomed to hearing. Because Mitt has not convinced us that we know how he really "feels."

Mitt Romney, America demands that you cry! If you can't cry when you lose, then cry when you win. Only don't wait too long, or you may not get the chance to cry at all.

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Follow Lisa Wexler on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lisawexler

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-wexler/mitt-romney_b_1222603.html

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APNewsBreak: Afghan asylum bids hit 10-year high (AP)

KABUL, Afghanistan ? More Afghans fled the country and sought asylum abroad in 2011 than in any other year since the start of the decade-long war, suggesting that many are looking for their own exit strategy as international troops prepare to withdraw.

From January to November, more than 30,000 Afghans applied for political asylum worldwide, a 25 percent increase over the same period the previous year and more than triple the level of just four years ago, U.N. statistics show.

Many Afghans are turning to a thriving and increasingly sophisticated human smuggling industry to get themselves ? or in most cases, their sons ? out of the country. They pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to cross into Iran or Pakistan to more $25,000 for fake papers and flights to places like London or Stockholm.

Thousands of refugees also return each year, but their numbers have been dwindling as the asylum applications rise. Both trends highlight worries among Afghans about what may happen after 2014, when American and other NATO troops turn security over to the Afghan army and police.

The true numbers of people leaving is likely even higher ? since those who are successfully smuggled abroad often melt into an underground economy. Still, the jump in a rough indicator like asylum seekers suggests the total numbers are also on the rise.

Smuggling people out of Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan is a $1 billion-per-year criminal enterprise, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimates. Those who pay to leave often face a risky journey and detention abroad because many developed countries now see many Afghans who flee as illegal economic migrants, not political refugees.

Still, the business finds an eager clientele in Afghans such as Ahmad, an unemployed 20-year-old in Kabul. He has agreed to pay a smuggler $400 to take him over the Iranian border, where he hopes to find work and save up to move on to Europe in a few years. He has no money, but his smuggler is giving him credit ? he'll have a month to pay up once he's in Iran.

"I don't think anything will improve in three or five years, so it's better to leave now," said Ahmad, who expects to leave for Iran within a few weeks. He asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of being arrested.

Ahmad's family fled to Iran during the Taliban's late 1990s rule and returned full of hope after the regime fell. But now, he sees no future in his homeland.

"If foreign troops leave, the situation will only get worse, not better," he said.

That's a view shared by many. Tajma Kurt, who manages an International Organization for Migration program helping Afghans who have returned home, says she's noticed a marked change in ordinary Afghans' outlook since roughly 2007, when the Taliban insurgency began to gain strength and violent attacks increased.

"Before, they were looking for a job, discussing buying a house or whatever," Kurt said. "Now, they are all thinking of leaving because the situation has deteriorated dramatically and they don't see that it's going to get much better."

Devastated by decades of war, Afghanistan is already the world's biggest source of refugees, with more than 3 million of its total population of 30 million still outside the country, most in Iran and Pakistan, according to the office of the U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees and the Afghan government.

After the 2001 U.S.-led military intervention that toppled the Taliban, some 5.7 million Afghan refugees returned. The vast majority of those came back in the first five years. The numbers have since dwindled, with about 60,000 refugees returning last year, about half the number as the previous year.

As the pace of returns slowed, the number of Afghans seeking asylum abroad rebounded. In 2011, 30,407 sought asylum through November, the latest available figures.

Driving both trends is not only economic ambition but deep uncertainties about the country's future, says Abdul Samad Hami, deputy minister of Afghanistan's Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation.

"Who knows what happens when foreign troops leave Afghanistan? Is it going to get better or worse? Who knows what happens with the foreign aid to Afghanistan ? going down or increasing?" he said.

Some Afghans fear that once most foreign troops leave, the Taliban will take over more territory and civil war could erupt along ethnic lines, as it did in the 1990s. Others worry the Afghan economy will collapse if foreign aid dries up.

The real number of Afghans leaving is unknown, but undoubtedly higher than the asylum figures. The country's foreign ministry recently said 50,000 Afghans illegally entered Greece in the past two years alone, many of them now stranded without passports or money to move farther into Europe. Most of those arranged their journey with smugglers.

For their money, many endure a perilous journey.

Esmat Adine nearly drowned after the overcrowded boat he was on sank off Indonesia late last year, killing at least 200 fellow asylum-seekers headed for Australia. He says he left his wife and infant son at home in Afghanistan and paid $5,000 to travel to Australia after the Taliban threatened to kill him for working with American aid workers. He flew from Kabul to Dubai, then boarded a plane to Jakarta, Indonesia. From there, he was taken to eastern Java and was packed onto the doomed boat.

When the vessel capsized, Adine managed to survive by swimming to a nearby island.

"I swam and swam until I reached the shore," Adine, 24, told The Associated Press in an Indonesian detention center, where he is awaiting a ruling on his legal status. "I thought of how my wife and children are counting on me, of how I must earn a good life in Australia, free from intimidation."

He says he still hopes to be able to enter Australia and send for his family.

Australia has vowed to crack down on asylum-seekers but has been forced to relax a policy of mandatory detention because its detention camps are dangerously overcrowded.

Hami, the Afghan refugee official, says the country has come a long way and if the transition goes smoothly, fewer people will want to leave. But he conceded that depends on whether the government can provide security and jobs.

"If the situation gets worse, people will go out. If the situation gets better, people will return."

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Associated Press reporters Massieh Neshat in Kabul and Ali Kotarumalos in Indonesia contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120121/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan_more_fleeing

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