DISCLAIMER:

My remarks should not be taken to reflect on the presenters...a couple whom I know personally. One the spouse of a certain retiring CAT...

I arrived at the webinar carrying substantial baggage:

• I am retired. (Oh, Happy Day!) Accordingly, none of the information presented at the webinar had personal significance. I was like the student who agrees to "show up" on state testing day, knowing full well that whatever I may do (or not do) will not affect me. (Oh, just like the aforementioned hypothetical student, a teacher or three may lose her/his job, but c'est la vie! Such is employment life or death in the 21st Century!)

• I am still pissed...that the IEA would sell out seniority (the only protection that teachers have against biased and/or incompetent administrators and school boards with various axes to grind. Yes, their intentions were good (trying to hijack the train bearing down on teachers, piloted by their enemies...both Democratic and Republican. IEA thought it could steer said train to a less devastating crash (as it did with the old CPDU proposals.) Only question remains in this era of 20-20 hindsight..."What were you thinking?" (DISCLAIMER within disclaimer: As the pages of CAT Tracks bear witness, I was out their in the middle of the tracks, impersonating "he who", waving my fingers...trying to get attention, to just stop the madness...to no avail.) As an OLD history teacher...I know the fruits of collaborating with the enemy. Didn't work with Hitler or other various despots...ain't gonna work with recalcitrant school boards or clueless politicians with a perfect scapegoat (teachers) in their cross-hairs. All that bad stuff still happens...and the collaborators have dirty hands.

• I am too damn to old. It's true...you just can't teach a dinosaur (especially a retired one) new tricks. Having not attended the past four years of SIP days, having not completed a single CPDU, I have become like the modern student...a short little attention span. I am not up on the latest "buzz words". I sat through yesterday's webinar buffeted by words that had no meaning to my literally and figuratively deaf ears...

What was the old saying about the manufacture of silk purses out of dubious raw material?

Where was I?

Oh, yes...

...the Illinois Performance Evaluation Webinar.

Chock full of information of what will happen to you and when...namely the teacher evaluations that you will be subjected beginning with next school year (and beyond.)

The timelines are set...

...teacher evaluators must complete their (30+ hours of) training by September 2012. (Said evaluators - paying $650 each - must pass their own assessment upon completing the training. They get two shots...with a remedial third and final attempt to prove their proficiency.) BTW: One no longer has to have a Type 75 (administrative) certificate to be an officially licensed evaluator...the purpose being to accommodate/develop a cadre of "peer evaluators". (I have all kinds of concerns about "peer evaluation" but will curb my catty tongue...at least until I know more.)

"Student growth" is a key feature in the new PERA...that unreliable, unfair, and invalid student-testing system, railed against by the likes of Diane Ravitch and other established experts in the education and research field. (Yes, that litany of adjectives was catty reference to the requirements specified in the webinar as needed for proper, meaningful assessment..."reliable, fair, and valid." Bottom line: No such tests exist for the purpose to which they are being used...the assessment of students to determine which teachers are good or bad, which teachers should be kept or fired. But, never mind! ATTENTION: All you lemmings...to the sea, to the sea!!!)

Sorry, my mind wandered...

"Student growth" must count at least 25% in teacher evaluations conducted in 2012-2013...increased to 30%, up to 50% thereafter.

Sucks, being you...

You will hear about Type I, Type II, and Type III assessments for meeting the requirements of PERA and measuring student growth. These are the tests given to students...Type III being teacher-made tests. (Type III is for all you folks - an example given...an art teacher - for whom there are no standardized tests exist...reliable, fair, valid or otherwise.

Charlotte Danielson...

...self-styled guru on teacher effectiveness and teacher evaluation.

Okay, okay...it ain't just Charlotte. I heard about her "back in the day"...when I used to accompany my wife to IEA Board of Director's meetings in Springfield. "Educated folks" - the real "professional" types (unlike hack dinosaurs like me who "winged it" all those years - look upon this Danielson woman as a goddess who walks on education waters, or at least parts the waters of ignorance. Whatever... (I bet she puts her dress on two legs at a time, just like I do!)

Hmmm...

Dinosaurs who wing it.

Wow...

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...

Aw, hell, it's Michelle Rhee flaunting her damn broom...still waiting for Superman!

Wandering mind...

...they say it's part of the aging process.

Back to the webinar...

Charlotte Danielson...

...wrote the book (well books!) on teacher effectiveness and teacher evaluation. One of the presenters yesterday referred to her book, with the admonition..."Study her book!" ("The Danielson Group". Wonder if they cloned her?! It did cross my mind during the webinar that it appeared that the goal of this reform process was the development of "Stepford Teachers". The people behind the scenes have developed these 360-degree-view videos for prospective evaluators to study...showing them what the "excellent teacher" should look like (with the ever-present rubric for measuring same.)

I think (with a wandering mind) that Danielson's book is where the presenters got one of their slides (or at least the inspiration)...a "Framework Vocabulary". The slide referred to "four domains, 22 components, and 76 trombones, uh, elements on "what teaching is all about."

Well, that may be what teaching used to be all about. Now, teaching is about jumping through impossible hoops...while taking abuse...before someone off the street with minimum qualifications (shrinking all the time) replaces you.

All told, there were approximately 50 powerpoint presentation slides...again, chock full of everything you wanted to know about the new Illinois Performance Evaluation Reform Act(PERA)...

...well, at least what they have done so far. The folks doing this stuff may not be dinosaurs, but they are definitely winging it.

I bet you're sorry now that you missed the webinar!

Have no fear, shed no tears...

...we were told during the webinar that it was being recorded and that it would be available in the "members only" area of the Illinois Education Association (IEA) website.

Not a member...lucky you!

However, where there is a will, there is a way. As they say:

"There's more than one way to skin a..." (OMG...did I almost say that?! Time for the three Our Father's and three Hail Mary's!!!)

If you are not an IEA member and cannot access the recorded webinar...

...befriend a teacher. Lord knows they could use a friend in today's anti-teacher climate!!!

But, not now...

...got things to do, places to go, people to see!

In the TMI world, gotta sh.., sh...., and sh...!!!

Time to hop into that shiny new catmobile and head off into the wild blue yonder...

Robbins et al is on the clock today.

Wouldn't wanna keep them waiting...