Dear
San Diego City Schools employees:
It
was disappointing to read an article in the California
Teachers' Association magazine California Educator
that attempts to divide rather than unify our
district. The article appears to string together
a litany of isolated incidents, half-truths
and outright fabrications in order to make
a case that teachers are not respected in San
Diego and need greater control over their own
future. We have had difficult discussions during
the planning and implementation of the district's
reforms. Our passions are evident as we all vehemently
discuss our work to focus on our most important
objective: improving achievement for all our students.
What
is true is that we in San Diego City Schools are
at a crossroads. Let us recommit to working together
to make constructive and real attempts to improve
the reforms that we have put in place designed
to help all students learn rather than going
down a path to mutual self-destruction in
which we will all lose, including our students.
The finger pointing, name-calling, half-truths,
misinformation, and rumors have to stop, and
constructive dialogue has to again resurface.
This is not about differing philosophies or
opinion. This is about a highly charged political
environment in an election year. Our focus
is being misdirected away from our overarching
objective. We must return our focus to students.
I
have heard from many of you that the reforms that
we have put in place across all of our schools
are, in general, positive. But you have been critical
about how these reforms have been implemented.
I make no excuses. Our implementation has not
been perfect. Nor has it necessarily been consistent.
We did not communicate as well as we could have.
We did not engage our administrators, teachers
and staff as much as we should have. We needed
to move quickly and we did. On one hand it has
cost us. And it has cost some of you. I know
that some of you who have embraced elements of
the reform when it was not popular to do so did
it at the risk of being criticized by colleagues.
You have told me privately that you see that your
students are benefiting. You know that it works,
and it has played a part in the academic progress
we have seen from our students across all ethnic
groups over the past four years. While we all
should be proud of this, our teachers and site
staff deserve a great deal of the credit because
they are the ones working daily with our students.
And we should all feel responsible for this. We
can all celebrate the increased achievement of
our students – we have all played a role
in their improvement. Let's address the myths
about our reforms
Myth
- this reform and professional development are
"one-size-fits-all."
Fact:
The whole premise behind the reforms is providing
teachers with standard approaches, strategies,
tools and techniques to be adapted and used with
each student individually based on her or his
learning needs. The more we learn about the value
of professional development the more we are tailoring
it for specific teachers' needs and continued
growth. To be successful, training in a particular
strategy should not be a one-time-only approach.
Therefore, we have created an infrastructure where
teachers receive continuous support on the strategy
throughout the year whether it be guided reading
or new mathematics curriculum. For example, the
80 physics teachers implementing new curriculum
receive one hour of professional development each
day, participate in team meetings once a month,
and have access to a highly interactive web site
with lesson plans and discussion groups. In addition,
a group of math teachers are receiving professional
development geared toward teaching algebra. The
feedback obtained from these sessions is invaluable.
Myth
– we are eliminating the arts
Fact:
Visual arts, dance, music and drama are and will
always be an important part of every student's
school life. In addition to adopting state standards
for visual and performing arts, we currently
have two model schools (Sunset View Elementary
and Ellen Browning Scripps Elementary) where arts
specialists and teachers are exploring ways to
strengthen the strategies in standards-based arts
instruction as well as ways to integrate arts
to reinforce learning throughout the curriculum.
In addition, all 5th grade students as part of
the Balboa Park program have a hands-on arts and
culture experience. The visual and performing
arts will also play an important role in our high
school reform efforts so that our graduates will
be prepared to meet the University of California's
new entrance requirement of a year-long course
in the arts. The district is actively involved
with the newly formed San Diego Arts Education
Partnership, a group designed to provide funding,
to act as a liaison between the community and
schools, and to provide assistance to our teachers
on implementing state standards for the arts.
On May 23rd, with our partners in the community,
we will host Applause 2002, an arts event to showcase
our student talent in all of the arts and to
raise funds to support district arts programs.
Myth
– children are locked into three-hour blocks
where they do nothing but read, and are to
the point of being soured on reading.
Fact:
Teachers are encouraged to insert various types
of content into the morning literacy block and
are free to use this time to also teach about
social science or history, as long as they are
also teaching the students how to access written
material and how to comprehend, think and write.
Reading is more than just phonetically decoding
the words and knowing what they mean. We are now
teaching reading as an experience. Students are
able to make inferences, comparisons, and predictions.
They study entire bodies of work by individual
authors. Students now have access to books that
are of interest to them personally and that are
at their grade level because teachers have flexibility
to build their classroom libraries to meet their
students' needs.
Myth
- science instruction does not focus on science
and curriculum has been "dumbed down."
Fact:
The high school science program is designed to
provide a foundation in physics, chemistry and
biology for all students. Students must take three
years of laboratory science to graduate from high
school. Meeting this requirement will also allow
students to apply to the University of California.
The reordering of the science instructional sequence
came at the request of district biology teachers,
who feel that their students need a foundational
understanding of physics and chemistry before
they take biology. The new physics curriculum
(Active Physics) was developed by the National
Science Foundation, the American Institute of
Physics and the American Association of Physics
Teachers. The curriculum has been reviewed by
the University of California and certified as
meeting the a-g requirements as a college preparatory
course. The review praised the district for
offering a program that provides all students
with physics instruction that is grounded in physics
activities and not mathematical problem solving.
So
what's next?
We
have to continue to improve our support of the
school site staff. Last week nearly four hundred
support staff participated in a professional development
conference focused on classified staff needs.
We learned a lot from attendees about how we can
do things better at the central office to help
them be more effective. We will act on these issues.
No
one within the district leadership wants our employees
to feel there is a "climate of fear."
Part of accountability is being willing to take
responsibility for talking about what is not working
or when things are not going well. Staff who
feel that they are being harassed must find a
way of letting us know. Tell your principal. Tell
your instructional leader. Tell the chancellor
or tell me. We can't act if we don't know.
And we will act.
Everything
we do is about the mission we have undertaken
collectively to help our students improve. For
my part, I pledge to continue the district's efforts
to gather important feedback, and act upon
it where appropriate, as part of our work
to make informed mid-course corrections to our
reforms.
We
are enjoying successes on behalf of all our students,
and you should not let anyone diminish the strong
role you have played in those successes. Since
1998, we have moved thousands of students into
the top quartile in scores on reading, literacy
and mathematics tests. More importantly, we have
moved thousands of students out of the bottom
quartile. We have strengthened our Gifted and
Talented Education program, as well as provided
necessary resources to our lowest performing schools
in an attempt to raise both the ceiling of achievement
as well as the floor in order to close the achievement
gap. Let us all take the right path at the crossroads.
We can choose a path of better dialogue, better
involvement and more flexibility as student achievement
success grows. Many people say that the public
education system is irreparable. I don't believe
this to be true. Our community is deeply interested
in seeing the education system improve dramatically.
The community at large should see us as continuing
to fight together for better education for our
students. If we're only seen as continuing
to fight each other, our community could decide
to make changes none of us want to live with.
Our students, parents, taxpayers, and the community
are counting on us to work together to solve these
issues. And we will.
For
those of you who are coming in each day and trying
your best to make this work one way or another,
I thank you on behalf of the administration and
our students. To the vocal minority who want
to return to the so-called "good old days,"
I ask you to put aside the rhetoric. Let's
look at what is good about the reforms and what
needs to be improved. Let's put forward real and
substantial suggestions on improvement. Let's
work at the school sites, with teachers, principals,
instructional leaders and staff developers to
improve our practice.
In
this struggle for reform, if it becomes a matter
of the last person standing, the living may envy
the vanquished. For our students,
Alan
D. Bersin
Superintendent of Public Education
To
read the full article in California Educator,
please see http://www.cta.org/cal_educator/v6i6/feature_teachers.html
