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(This post is part of a series related to the VIVA/NEA 360° Report. See an overview here.)

By Amanda Koonlaba.

In October 2014, while on maternity leave, I received an email from Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, about participating in an Idea Exchange with VIVA Teachers. This Idea Exchange posed these questions, “A wide body of research suggests instructional quality has an important impact on student learning and development, but is not the only major factor. Are we including appropriate measures and indicators in today’s accountability systems? How should responsibility for a students’ education be assigned and measured at all levels of the education system? How should teachers be supported to provide the best possible education in every classroom? Who should be responsible for resources to create a safe and equitable learning environment for all students?”

I was intrigued by this invitation for two reasons. First, the email was from the president of the NEA. I had been looking for more ways to be involved in educational advocacy since my return from the Empowered Educator’s Day at the NEA National Convention in July 2014, where I heard then president Dennis van Roekel speak. After that event, I began reading some of the new president’s writing and had become quite intrigued with her. So, I immediately trusted that this was a good thing in which to participate because the NEA had reached out to its members for their voice concerning accountability. The second reason I was so intrigued is that there was a possibility of being asked to write a published report based on the Idea Exchange and to travel to Washington, D.C. to present the material to the NEA. I love to write about education so the thought of being published was exciting. Plus, I also love any excuse to travel to our nation’s beautiful capital.

I had been taking some courses as part of my journey to attain a specialists degree. A lot of the material I had studied and written for those courses easily answered the questions posed by the Idea Exchange. Therefore, I was able to tweak some of my writing and use the knowledge I’d gained from my course work to make thoughtful posts. Supposedly, a sophisticated algorithm was used to select teachers to move into the official Writing Collaborative, and I received the email invite to join on October 27. Because I had so actively participated, even if for a short time frame, and provided thoughtful and informed posts, I was not surprised to be asked to work on the final report and to present in D.C.

We were told this work would consist of collaboration with a small group of teachers and would take about 20-30 hours of our personal time over the course of three weeks. Also, the invitation email stated, “Your recommendations will be just that: yours.” So, even though this seemed like a considerable time commitment to a new parent, I agreed for the chance to work on a published report that would include my voice and be my written work. Thus, I joined and commenced with the team in the writing of recommendations based on the posts of 945+ teachers from the Idea Exchange.

On Thanksgiving morning, as I sat on my parents’ couch searching my iPad for videos of my new baby to share with the family, I heard the familiar chime that alerts me to new email messages. I’m a go-getter, and with technology like the iPad, it is so easy for me to check things like email immediately, even on holidays. This email was from VIVA and expressed admiration for the work that the Writing Collaborative had done and offered that “In editing the report, the leadership team had a couple of suggestions (attached) of how to reframe some of the writing and best position the report so that it resonates with policy makers. As you read through the memo, please keep in mind that these are not set in stone…”

This was not immediately unsettling. I had expected a copy editor to make grammar and punctuation suggestions, and to also provide guidance for clear and concise writing. However, when I opened the attached PDF of the suggested “reframings”, I became alarmed. The suggestion to reframe “Educate the Whole Child” as “Use more comprehensive and more accurate assessment to determine the pace of students’ intellectual skill growth & knowledge acquisition” AND to reframe “Teacher Autonomy and Professionalism” as “Invest in ongoing professional training and development that is shaped by the evaluation process to maximize development & application of improved practices”  felt like turning 180 degrees from what we were trying to communicate to NEA based on ideas presented by the 945+ members who participated in the Exchange.

I replied to all less than an hour later with “Wow, total rewrite of the recommendations. Monday’s phone call will be interesting.” Several replies came from members of the Writing Collaborative, and I eventually replied to all a few more times. I wrote “I don’t understand why we even did this if they were going to write their own recommendations. I want my name as a writer on the work I did. I do not support these rewritten recommendations, some of which are loosely related, at best, to what we wrote.” Another Writing Collaborative member offered that maybe the “reframings” were based on their understanding of educational jargon, which could have been influenced by the language used in the media. So, I considered that it could be possible that they were just confused about the points we were trying to get across. I naively decided that it was unfair to expect VIVA’s editors to be able to truly use educational language to rewrite anything we had written because they had no true background knowledge.

On Monday’s phone call, the emails and “reframings” were glossed over. The suspicions that arose concerning the redirecting of our writing were not addressed, but the group felt we could move forward with our work as long as VIVA put our words back into the report that would be presented to NEA.

We pressed on, working for many more than the promised 20-30 hours, until we made the trip to D.C. to present to the NEA Accountability Task Force. We received the final copy of the report when we walked into the NEA building. Its important to note here that we had not seen it until the morning we were to present to the Task Force. Many of us didn’t have time to read it until we were on the planes returning home.

I had worked almost exclusively on Recommendation 4: Teacher Autonomy and Professionalism. I didn’t think that this recommendation was heavily edited for content from the original work we submitted. However, there were many Writing Collaborative members who expressed their grave concerns that large amounts of content had been excised from their writing that caused the content to be skewed.

In December, after the trip to D.C., a few of us were contacted to work on a graphic that would represent the report. We were asked to write a couple of “Solutions” for each of the recommendations. For Recommendation 4, we submitted

  1. Eliminate high-stakes standardized assessments and redirect funding into developing teacher professionalism and autonomy as led by teachers, including
  • compensation for time worked beyond contract hours
  • compensate teachers on same level as other professionals with similar training and experience
  • teachers decide best practices and curriculum planning for classroom.
  • paid leadership positions for teachers to communicate with board members
  1. Mandate at least 55 minutes of uninterrupted, collaborative and independent, curricula planning time 5 days a week.

In late January, we received a draft of the graphic in which Recommendation 4 had been changed to read:

  • Compensate teachers on the same level as other professionals with similar training and experience including compensation for time worked beyond contract hours and paid leadership positions for teachers to communicate with board members.
  • Mandate at least 55 minutes of uninterrupted, collaborative and independent, curricula planning time 5 days a week.

Again, there were emails back and forth about the content being altered until January 27 when we received an email with the subject line: NEA 360 Project is Complete. The email stated, “we received word that the NEA task force is now wrapping up their work on the project, so that means our own work has come to a close as well. We will not be attaching the new image to this project.” That meant that all of the time and work we had put into the graphic was for naught.

At this point, all I could do was sigh with relief, even though I felt quite defeated. I had spent so much personal, uncompensated time working on this project that I was really quite happy to be finished with it. Yet, I had spent so much personal, uncompensated time working on this project that I was also angry that it had not made more of an impact. It had not been promoted as much as I thought it would. It had not yet been published on the VIVA website. After that email I was sure there would be no follow up webinars and podcasts, which had been promised and for which I had signed up.

If one good thing came out of this experience, it was the flame that was fanned in the Writing Collaborative members for the educational advocacy fire. We found another way to have a voice through blogging and connecting with other advocates and groups around the country. We no longer have to remain silent. We also no longer have to rely on any outside entity to have a voice.

Eventually, the report did make it to the VIVA website. The blog post I had written about Teacher Autonomy was finally published on the VIVA Teachers Blog with a link to the report. I am extremely proud of the report and the work of the Writing Collaborative. I am thankful to have had this experience because I grew as a professional. Yet, as I reflect on the process of sharing my educator voice, I just have to consider the miscommunications that led to mistrust that led to struggles and conflict. If Teacher Voice projects truly seek to empower teachers in decision-making processes, much can be learned from the NEA 360 Writing Collaborative’s experience.

All 17 of the Writing Collaborative members and the moderator managed to maintain contact after our official work came to a close. We have a formed a unique network for sharing ideas and advocating for public education. I’ve been very intrigued at how even our differing perspectives have made us stronger as we continue to learn from each other.

This report is not the last that you will hear from us. Its clear that we aren’t afraid of a little work and are in it for the right reasons. If we were in it for money, the way some reformers are, we never would have put in all this work without compensation. We are in this for the students and for the sanctity of the American public education system. Citizens of this great country can rest assured that we are a force for good and are out to protect our nation’s future, the future of our children. Yes, you will be hearing from us.

As Lily says, “Onward. No fear.”

Author

Anthony Cody

Anthony Cody worked in the high poverty schools of Oakland, California, for 24 years, 18 of them as a middle school science teacher. He was one of the organizers of the Save Our Schools March in Washington, DC in 2011 and he is a founding member of The Network for Public Education. A graduate of UC Berkeley and San Jose State University, he now lives in Mendocino County, California.

Comments

  1. Mary Porter    

    Thank you for this more complete account, Amanda. I’m surprised that your final judgement is one of satisfaction, though. I’m one of the other 925 other teachers who answered Lily’s questionnaire, and this report is now part of an onslaught to silence our voices. Your group is serving as a tool of the Waltons and the Gates foundation, and yet you still insist that their mantle gives you the authority to speak for us.

    For one instance, you cite this policy substitution, which was made by NO TEACHER WHATSOEVER in our cohort:
    “The suggestion to reframe “Educate the Whole Child” as “Use more comprehensive and more accurate assessment to determine the pace of students’ intellectual skill growth & knowledge acquisition” ”

    The actual for-profit product your editors recommended, which is now being imposed by force on teachers and children in Massachusetts, is the TSGold. At our MTA “Reclaim Public Education” forums, it was teachers who raised our voices against this systematized whole-child abuse. It was teachers who mobilized union to create this page:
    http://www.massteacher.org/issues_and_action/kindergarten_assessments.aspx

    The VIVA Exchange model is a sock-puppet machine, not teacher voice at all. I’m very sorry you fell into it.

    1. Duane Swacker    

      “I’m one of the other 925 other teachers who answered Lily’s questionnaire,. . . ”

      Now those 925 teachers were specifically chosen by some sort of algorithm, right?

      If so then that group is a very limited (by definition and choosing, much like a charter’s student demographics is almost always quite different from those of the local public schools due to selection bias.) group and certainly doesn’t come close to being a “voice for all teachers”.

      The leadership of the NEA is a great example of the definition of “collaborators”– From MW Dictionary online: to give help to an enemy who has invaded your country during a war.

  2. Mary Porter    

    Was Teaching Strategies LLC what your editors needed your report to resonate with?

    “GOLDplus™ by Teaching Strategies uses rich data to help you plan ahead, track progress, and inform decisions that meet the needs of each child, every step of the way. So you can spend less time connecting the dots, and more time connecting with each child.”
    http://teachingstrategies.com/

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