Performance Pay in the Spud State

Idaho is working on a statewide merit pay proposal, according to the Spokane Spokesman-Review:

A sweeping proposal from state Superintendent of Schools Tom Luna that would give substantial pay raises to teachers who give up tenure, work at high-performing schools, assume leadership roles or take difficult-to-fill positions drew praise from local school leaders Thursday for its innovation.

The North Idaho school administrators who gathered in Coeur d'Alene on Thursday to hear about the plan raised questions that underscored part of the reason Luna was there: He's seeking input early on what will help the plan win the Legislature's approval next year.

The plan will never be perfect, he said, but "I would encourage you to get behind this, support it, help make it better."

Because the proposal would create two contracts for teachers to choose from – one with tenure and one without – some school leaders questioned how the contract would compare in the instance of forced layoffs. Others wondered how the plan would appeal to school employees like counselors, who under the current proposal wouldn't be eligible for every extra pay incentive, such as more cash for taking on leadership activities.

"Some of those are trials that have yet to be worked out and some are details that could be tweaked," said Melissa McGrath, spokeswoman for the state Department of Education. "People really support the plan and like it, they may have a few questions here and there but it's mostly about details."

Luna's proposed budget for the 2008-09 school year calls for a 7.9 percent increase over the previous budget – with about half, or $60 million, going to the performance pay program. Teachers who keep existing contracts with tenure could get increases as high as $6,000 if their schools show growth or proficiency on the ISAT. But teachers who forgo tenure could get added pay for things like certification in multiple subjects.

Key points of the proposal include:

•$2,400, one-time pay increase for all certified staff in a school that's in the top 25 percent statewide and shows improvement on the spring Idaho Standards Achievement Test; $1,200 if the school scores in the 50th to 25th percentiles; $1,200, one-time pay increase for certified staff at a school that performs in the top quartile overall.

•$2,400 per person annually for positions deemed difficult to fill by the school district. •$2,400 annually to give up tenure.

•$2,400 annually for non-tenured teachers who take on extra leadership activities like supervising after-school programs.

•Up to $2,400 for non-tenured teachers who earn additional expertise certificates.

A six-step procedure would be in effect for teachers who choose to forgo tenure for more pay.

"Some teachers already do this when they go into administration," Luna said. "We want to give them the opportunity to take this and remain in the classroom."

The current starting salary for Idaho teachers is $31,000. If the Legislature funds Luna's proposal, a first-year teacher who forgoes tenure and fills an in-demand position would make nearly $5,000 more.

"That's what it's going to take if we're going to attract the best and brightest," he said. "… We're never going to get teacher pay where we want it if we're just going to add 2, 3, 4 percent on the base pay each year."

Though most had questions about the details and suggested changes, school leaders commended the overall plan, saying it is bold and well thought-out.

Post Falls School District Superintendent Jerry Keane asked what the proposal could mean for administrative salaries, which are already closely aligned with top teacher salaries. "That gap is getting smaller as a result of this," he said. "I know you can't take on the whole world … but it's something to think about."

Calling it "a great start," Coeur d'Alene School District Superintendent Harry Amend said the proposal works to address a number of issues "that we have been hammering on in Idaho for a number of years" such as higher pay and attracting teachers to in-demand subject areas like science and special education.

"The point is, it's significant dollars for teacher salaries," said Chuck Kinsey, superintendent of the Lakeland School District. "The window's right to pass it."

Skyway Elementary School third-grade teacher Paula Marano, president of the Coeur d'Alene Education Association, said local educators have questions about the proposal such as how the Legislature will be able to sustain such a substantial increase in the education budget. The union will hear from state union leader Sherri Wood at its next meeting regarding Luna's proposal.

"It's controversial," she said.

In what's becoming my modus operendi, here's a couple of thoughts:

1. Right message, wrong messenger? Tom Luna isn't the most respected politician in the state of Idaho. His degree has been called into question, and his bona fides on education are sketchier than you'd like to see in the person in charge of all education in your state.
   
   
2. The option to have a tenured or non-tenured contract is interesting--I don't know that I've seen that in any other proposal--and it also begs a question of whether a teacher could switch between the two, or whether they're locked into one for life.
   
   
3. The statement from his spokesperson seems odd; it doesn't speak well of anyone that they would support a plan without knowing the details. It means they either don't care about the details, or they're thoughtless. Neither is attractive.
   
   
4. I emphasized the first bullet point because I'm either misreading it or the reporter doesn't understand percentile rankings, but if you give a bonus to those schools in the highest (75th to 99th) percentiles, then a different bonus to those schools in the 25th to 50th percentiles, you've oddly skipped the schools from the 51st to 75th. I can guess what the plan is, but the reporter worded it very awkwardly.
   
   
5. Note that all of the support statements are from superintendents, who have absolutely nothing to lose from this. It'll be interesting to see how the IEA, toothless as they are, respond.

Read more here, if any.

The Science Goddess on Establishing an Intervention System

Very good post that anyone who's gone above and beyond for their kids can emphasize with, here.

I'm going through something similar now as I work on my RTI grant for the district. Some teachers want to know how to reach every kid, some are anxious to have the discussion about how we can shape the school day to meet the needs of every child...and some aren't interested. At all.

I'll reach them yet. I'm persistent and cuddly, and that's a deadly combination.

Read more here, if any.

My very last post on Dino Rossi for today

Caption this picture!



"Yes, it really is this big."
"C'mon....who wants a hug?"
"Look, no hands!"
"The kick is up....and good."
"I watched Papal Blessings for Dummies, and I've think I've got it down. Watch!"
"Degree antiperspirant....it really works."
"So then to put this part in my hair they had to bring in a comb about yay long...."
"Everybody out there, put your hands in the air, and wave them like you hate children's health care. Word, yo."

Read more here, if any.

More on Dino Rossi from the Dailies

From the News Tribune:

Rossi knocked Gregoire for pushing a plan to increase the state gas tax for new transportation projects in 2005, for agreeing to delay requirements that high school students pass some standardized tests in order to graduate and for not taking personal responsibility when agencies fail.

Rossi offered a few ideas of his own. He’d support merit pay for good teachers and give school districts “emergency powers” to fire bad ones. He’d also support additional school board elections in districts where student achievement consistently lags.

The Seattle Times:

He said Gregoire has "spent and spent and spent" and set the state on course for a huge budget crisis in a few years. He said she has failed to make traffic congestion a top priority and done little more than study major education problems.

Well--that last one probably does stick, but you have to remember the full name of the taskforce was Washington Learns! tohaveyetanotherstudyabouteducationinwashington

Read more here, if any.

At the WEA Conference

I've been in Seattle for the day attending a WEA conference on small and rural locals, which morphed into a conference on collective bargaining later on in the day.

So far, so good. At the Small Locals conference there was some good dialogue about the issues smaller districts face. The organization could have maybe been a little better, but so be it. My president and I have been talking about raising our local dues for a while now (currently, they're $5 a month), and we think we've hit upon a good formula that would be acceptable to our members and give us some more wiggle room financially.

This evening we've moved over to the DoubleTree SeaTac for the bargaining conference. Beautiful hotel, big hotel. To get to my room you go down a hallway, up an elevator, over the skybridge, down another elevator, through the big long building to the next big, long building, until the numbers start turning into sevens. I don't think it's an exaggeration at all to say that I'm more a good three football fields away from the front desk. No problem; I needed the walking anyways.

There was also discussion of a potential ballot initiative, but I don't think I want to let that one out of the house yet.

Met Mary Lundquist for the first time. She seems nice enough; I look forward to getting to know her and Mike Ragan better over the coming years.

Tomorrow there's three breakout sessions on different aspects of bargaining; I'm looking forward to hearing what's new.

Gotta love conferences!

Read more here, if any.

Slogan Revoked

I've been surfing around reading up on Dino Rossi, and I ended up over at WhackyNation, a blog affiliated with Rossi advisor Lou Guzzo. In a post railing against the media for not reporting the good news they share this story:

When in England at a large conference, General Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of ‘empire building’ by President Bush. He answered, saying: ‘Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.’ It became very quiet in the room."

I'd like to think that anyone would look at that paragraph and think that something was a bit off-kilter. Colin Powell pwns after being verbally assaulted by the titular head of the Anglican Communion? WTF?

Not our boys over at WhackyNation, though. They threw it up on the blog because the "Bush-hating, anti-war, Liberal press" wasn't going to report it. Damned press.

Trick is, the story's not exactly true. A cursory google for Colin Powell Archbishop Canterbury turns up better than 44,000 hits, the first four of which all offer the context for the quote and how editing has made the exchange something it wasn't.

I was going to let this go, but when your blog tagline is "Exposing political wacks and media hacks", you're inviting a higher standard of scrutiny.

Read more here, if any.

Rossi on Education

I'm over in Seattle today for a WEA conference on small/rural locals and collective bargaining. I'll have a post later tonight on some of the things I've learned.

One of the things I miss about Western Washington is being able to get so many daily newspapers. Where I grew up, in Rochester, you could get the Seattle Times, the Seattle PI, the Tacoma News-Tribune, the Olympian, the Portland Oregonian, the Centralia Chronicle, and a couple other small town dailies and weeklies. In Spokane you've got the Spokesman, one reliable weekly, and not a whole lot else. I've had a love affair with newspapers since I was able to read, so it's nice to get back to this side of the state and meet up with the old flames again.

Anyhow, the big story in Washington politics today is Dino Rossi declaring that he'll be running for governor again in 2008. You might remember the 2004 race, when Senator Rossi won the first two counts of the ballots before Governor Gregoire squeaked ahead in a third count where the veracity of the process in King County especially was questionable, and that's coming from a loyal dem.

Rossi had a big kickoff yesterday for his next run, and all three papers I read highlighted what he said about education. As a teacher, there's some things there that worry me. For example, from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

In education, Rossi promised to seek merit pay for teachers and principals, encourage more college graduates to teach math and science, relax accreditation rules "to bring new talent into the classroom," and use standardized testing to judge schools and school districts, "not just the students."

When a school consistently fails, principals should have "emergency powers to hire better staff and adopt a new curriculum," he said, "and when we see an entire school district consistently fail, I want to require new school board elections."

That's a hell of an agenda, but even beyond the question of whether it's doable or not, are these worthy changes?

1. Merit Pay: Please, please, please read NYC Educator and Eduwonk to check out the commentary on the recent merit pay proposal adopted in New York City. The big thing there is that it's more money going into the schools, but if Rossi is going to stand firm on not raising taxes and controlling spending, where is this additional money going to come from?
   
   Long-time readers know that I'm not reflexively against merit pay, but I think that if it's done it has to be researched like hell before you put it into the schools. Would Rossi have the discipline to start small and expand? Would a merit proposal from him even have a chance of getting past the WEA?
   
   
2. Relaxed accreditation rules: Really, Senator? It light of everything that's going on with teacher misconduct being in the news and the highly qualified rules built into NCLB, there's a dual pronged question here: even if you could make getting into the classroom easier, should you?
   
   
3. Emergency principal powers: Why? Proposals like this perpetuate the myth that principals are powerless in the face of the teachers and their big, bad union, but at the end of the day I think a skillful principal who works hard can make a change no matter what obstacles are in their path. Further, a bad principal with more power to hire, fire, and adopt bad curriculum is going to set your school back, not take them to the promised land.
   
   
4. Requiring new school board elections: I'm no constitutional scholar, but I'm willing to bet that it would take a reworking of the state constitution to give the governor the ability to fire school boards whole cloth. Further, what does that mean for local control?

There's a lot here to think about, and I've not even touched on the Seattle Times and the Tacoma News-Tribune articles yet. It will be interesting to see where the vision goes; more details are necessary.

Read more here, if any.

Lisa's Story, College Edition

From the October 12th Chronicle of Higher Education:

Randy Pausch didn't want his last lecture to be about dying. He is dying of pancreatic cancer, and he knows it is a painful way to go. But when he walked up to the podium last month to address more than 450 colleagues, students, and friends at Carnegie Mellon University, he intended to demonstrate that his focus is on living. So he did a couple of one-handed push-ups, sprinkled his remarks with jokes, donned props including a Mad Hatter hat, and generally showed that one way to cheat death is to laugh in its face.

Mr. Pausch, a 46-year-old professor of computer science and co-founder of the university's Entertainment Technology Center, agreed to give the talk in part so that his three young children, ages 5, 2, and 1, could one day hear his message on "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams."

Sure, he could have delivered the advice in front of a video camera at home — and he thought about taking that route — but he felt that an audience would lend his message greater weight.

"A couple of hundred people in a room, looking and listening and laughing and applauding — hopefully at the appropriate times — that gives a lot of validation to my kids that a lot of people believe in this, and a lot of people who knew me believe that I did my best to try to live this way," he said in an interview last week.

You can listen to the last lecture by going to Dr. Pausch's university website, where you can see the streaming video or get one giant download.

I just watched it, and it's worth the time. Alternately moving and funny, it's a great gift for him to leave his kids. God bless and good luck, Dr. Pausch.

Read more here, if any.

There's Science, then there's SCIENCE!

The Ig Nobel Awards (motto: Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK!) are sort of like the Razzies for science, highlighting the more interesting studies that have occured in the past year. Recent winners include the gay bomb, research into how sheets wrinkle, and an exploration of whether rats can tell the difference between someone speaking Japanese backwards and someone speaking Dutch backwards.

Really.

This could be a fun hook for a science class, or just for your own personal amusement.

Enjoy!

Read more here, if any.

The Adequacy Lawsuit is Dead--Long Live the Adequacy Lawsuit!

One of the things that Education Week is best as is the ongoing dialogue; there was a neat two-month span earlier this year when they went to town on Understanding by Design, and now there's a healthy exchange underway regarding filing suit as a means to get more money for schools.

The genesis was a well-researched opinion piece in the September 12th issue from Alfred Lindseth, who often represents the states as they defend themselves. He laid out a 5-part test for why the lawsuits have been failing (14 of the last 15, by his scoring) and gave a good insight into what "the other side" thinks.

This, in turn, sparked some great letters to Education Week from some of those most familiar with the adequacy wars, including Michael Rebell of Columbia University and Kathryn Firestone, executive director of the Oregon School Funding Defense Foundation.

Why this matters to Washington State is because of our own adequacy lawsuit currently winding its way through the system. The bludgeon that we have that most other states don't is the language from the state constitution regarding education being the paramount duty of the state. We could be the exception that breaks the trend Lindseth describes.

Read more here, if any.

Hold 'em........back?

Jay Greene is one of the big talking heads in education; I've discussed his work here before on merit pay and his most recent work regarding how schools are named. He's now turned his eye to retention policies, with a non-typical result:

Students retained for a year under Florida’s test-based promotion policy slightly outperformed students with similar test scores who were promoted to the next grade in previous years, according to a study published in the September issue of Education Finance and Policy.

That finding contradicts previous research, which has suggested that holding students back for a year can have harmful academic and social effects. The study’s authors, Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. Winters from the University of Arkansas, attribute the difference to the use of an objective promotion policy, rather than a subjective one based on teachers’ and administrators’ recommendations.

The study also found that students who were retained continued to make achievement gains in subsequent years. The researchers studied data from 2002 to 2005 from the Florida Department of Education on public school students in grades 3-10. The state’s promotion policy was started in 2002.

You can find the entire study at the Journal of Education Finance and Policy here.

I can't really judge without reading the entire report, but one wonders if a slight increase is worth the money that it costs to educate the child for another year. The last piece I bolded, about the retained kids continuing to make progress from year to year, also could be a bit misleading--are they progressing at the same rate as the other kids in their peer group, the kids in their class, or their grade as a whole?

Read more here, if any.

Do Lockdown Drills Scare Kids?

The preliminary answer is no, according to Education Week:

In the wake of school shooting incidents, growing numbers of elementary schools are practicing “intruder drills” so students know what to do in the event of such a crisis. But some people worry that the exercises might actually heighten children’s fears for their safety.

In a study published last month in the journal School Psychology Review, psychologists Elizabeth J. Zhe and Amanda B. Nickerson of the University of Albany, State University of New York, attempted to test that concern in an unnamed elementary school in the state.

The researchers divided 74 students in the 5th and 6th grades into two groups. One group underwent a lockdown drill, while the other took a lesson in origami, the Japanese paper-folding art. Tested later, the students who had practiced the crisis drill demonstrated that they had indeed learned the emergency procedures, but that they were no more anxious or fearful than their counterparts in the origami class.

Preparation saves lives.

Read more here, if any.

John Merrow is teh Awesome

Over at YouTube the folks from Learning Matters have been posting videos from John Merrow, the PBS education reporter. Currently there for your viewing pleasure is a 19-part series on school reform in Philadelphia that is absolutely gripping viewing for anyone involved in education.

You can get to the videos directly from the subpage off of YouTube, here.

Read more here, if any.

This Week's Fun Book Title from the Chronicle of Higher Education

Intersubjectivities and Popular Culture: Bakhtin and Beyond by Esther Peeren.

First person to post a review of this book to I Thought a Think.....has too much time on their hands.

Read more here, if any.

Chronicle of Higher Ed Funnies

Lawrence Douglas and Alexander George make some corrections to the college rankings here.

The new WikiScanner, which lets you see who is editing the pages, has been useful in catching what the students are up to on Wikipedia. An exerpt:

University of Florida
July 18, 2005, 4:53 a.m.
128.227.23.102
Original:
"Florida's Ben Hill Griffin Stadium … has a seating capacity of about 93,000."
Changed:
"Florida's Ben Hill Griffin Stadium … is made completely out of goat cheese."

You can read the entire article here.

Read more here, if any.

The Strange Case of the Failing Schools

This is going to be very interesting to watch as the reauthorization of NCLB moves its way through the legislative process:

LOS ANGELES — As the director of high schools in the gang-infested neighborhoods of the East Side of Los Angeles, Guadalupe Paramo struggles every day with educational dysfunction.

For the past half-dozen years, not even one in five students at her district’s teeming high schools has been able to do grade-level math or English. At Abraham Lincoln High School this year, only 7 in 100 students could. At Woodrow Wilson High, only 4 in 100 could.

For chronically failing schools like these, the No Child Left Behind law, now up for renewal in Congress, prescribes drastic measures: firing teachers and principals, shutting schools and turning them over to a private firm, a charter operator or the state itself, or a major overhaul in governance.

But more than 1,000 of California’s 9,500 schools are branded chronic failures, and the numbers are growing. Barring revisions in the law, state officials predict that all 6,063 public schools serving poor students will be declared in need of restructuring by 2014, when the law requires universal proficiency in math and reading.

“What are we supposed to do?” Ms. Paramo asked. “Shut down every school?”

With the education law now in its fifth year — the one in which its more severe penalties are supposed to come into wide play — California is not the only state overwhelmed by growing numbers of schools that cannot satisfy the law’s escalating demands.

In Florida, 441 schools could be candidates for closing. In Maryland, some 49 schools in Baltimore alone have fallen short of achievement targets for five years or more. In New York State, 77 schools were candidates for restructuring as of last year.

This is a bit of an addendum to my previous post, I suppose. Is KIPP ready to go out on this kind of scale? Can Ron Clark do more than one school at a time? Does Teach for America have 100,000 future PhD and EdD candidates chomping at the bit to go out and git 'er done?

What to do, what to do, what to do.....

Read more here, if any.

The Nagging Question of Teacher Quality

If you set the way-back machine to October 2nd (yes, I'm a bit behind in my reading) you'll find this neat commentary by Bob Herbert in the New York Times. It's not the most ground-breaking article--pay enough attention, and you'll see 20 or more like it in a year--but there is some thought there that bears attention, particularly this:

Professor Kane and I were discussing what he believes are the two areas that have the greatest potential for radically improving the way children are taught in the U.S. Both are being neglected by the education establishment.

The first is teacher quality, a topic that gets talked about incessantly. It has been known for decades that some teachers have huge positive effects on student achievement, and that others do poorly. The positive effect of the highest performing teachers on underachieving students is startling.

What is counterintuitive, but well documented, is that paper qualifications, such as teacher certification, have very little to do with whatever it is that makes good teachers effective.

.....

Concerned about raising the quality of teachers, states and local school districts have consistently focused on the credentials, rather than the demonstrated effectiveness — or ineffectiveness — of teachers in the classroom.

New forms of identifying good teachers and weeding out poor ones — by carefully assessing their on-the-job performance — have to be established before any transformation of American schools can occur.

This can be done without turning the traditional system of teacher tenure on its head. Studies have clearly shown that the good teachers and the not-so-good ones can usually be identified, if they are carefully observed in their first two or three years on the job — in other words, before tenure is granted.

Developing such a system would be difficult. But it’s both doable and essential. Getting serious about teacher quality as opposed to harping on tiny variations in test scores would be like moving from a jalopy to a jet.

These are the good intentions with which the road to hell is paved. Some thoughts:

1) The thought taht you can judge a teacher from their first couple years in the clasroom is a tough one for me to agree with. My first year was great; the kids performed at a high level, and I felt really good about what I was doing. My 2nd and 3rd years were terrible, and I seriously thought about leaving teaching. In my 5th year I was voted Teacher of the Year for my school and getting great results again.

It's a cycle, like many things in life. If you use results as a sole measuring stick in those first few years, you're going to run some people out of the profession who have a chance to make a real difference.

2) The idea that you can wed classroom performance and evaluation without impacting the tradition of tenure is a bit naive. If you look at how the kids do on their tests as an evaluation tool you're going reflect negatively on many, many teachers, fairly or not, and that will have an impact.

3) I wish I had a good answer for getting the best teachers to the kids who need them most, I really do. The pisser for the academics who think about these kinds of issues is that all the free-market, Taylorized incentives in the world aren't going to get the hueristic answer, for the simple fact that people change, their goals change, and how they teach changes. I might to a great job with the kids I have, but there's no way of knowing if I can replicate that with inner-city kids or not beyond experimentation that I don't want to be a part of.

I don't know what the answer to teacher quality is in the system we have now. Intuitively, I don't think that the recent NYC merit pay proposal is a step, for many of the reasons that NYC Educator discusses in the link. Intuitively, it feels like extending the school day should work, but as Ken over ad D-Ed Reckoning is fond of pointing out all the extra time in the world won't make a difference for the kids who get it if we keep on with the same lousy practices that have gotten the same lousy results.

Read more here, if any.

Shame on You, Angie Dorman

The voter's guide came in the mail today, and I flipped right to the section on 4204, the Simple Majority resolution. It's the same arguments that you've heard if you've paid any attention to the issue; the piece that caught my eye was that Angie Dorman, a "nationally recognized teacher, 2006 American Star of Teaching" was one of the people listed preparing the argument against the amendment, along with Sen. Janea Holmquist, Rep. Ed Orcutt, and a cast of others.

I've highlighted Ms. Dorman's writing here before, for an editorial she wrote criticizing the WEA union dues blowup from the spring. She's teaches in Warden, a small district with a high migrant population south of Moses Lake. And apparently, like Bob Morton, she also hates democracy. Let's look at some of the positions Ms. Dorman is signing her name to:

*If these constitutional protections are removed, your property taxes will increase faster. and Property taxes will go up with this measure. Absolutely false. 4204 doesn't raise taxes, it changes election law, and if the people of the community vote to raise their taxes, that's democracy.

*...making housing less affordable for seniors and working families. Absolutely false. Seniors always have the option to file and say that they can't afford their property taxes because they're on a fixed income--thousands do, and are actively encouraged to do so--and school taxes are a minuscule portion of the property tax formula. I also think it's telling that one of the groups signed on against 4204 is the Washington Farm Bureau, along with a pair of commercial foresters--do you think they're really worrying about the working family, or their own vast land holdings?

*Should a small minority be able to raise your taxes? Absolutely not, but the absurd rationalization they give of an election with 100 voters is just laughable. In this day of vote-by-mail, you have the ability to vote against a school levy if you want to. It doesn't matter what time of year it is or what day it's on--mail in your ballot, and your voice will have been heard.

But this isn't about an out-of-control minority that wants to raise your taxes--this is about the minority that opposes any tax increase and likes the power that a 60% supermajority gives them. Under the supermajority a no vote is worth 50% more than a yes vote, and that's undemocratic, period.

*It's time legislators and the governor make funding education #1. I am absolutely embarrassed for them that they would put this line in their screed. Let's go to the scorecard from the Children's Alliance, who publishes a report card on the voting records of our state legislators. In the two star category, about as low as you can go: Holmquist and Orcutt. Both voted against SB5841, which began the phase-in of all-day kindergarten, and they both voted against this year's state budget, which had all the extra money for schools in it.

By the by, do you want to know a district that DOES have full-day K for their kids? Why, that would be Warden, where Ms. Dorman teaches. Makes sense, since they have a highly migrant population. Isn't that nice for them?

She also has her travel paid for by the EFF, advocates for Northwest Professional Educators, and in fact serves on their board of directors.

By all accounts, Ms. Dorman is a sensational teacher. There's no disputing the good that she's done for kids in a tough, tough environment. By standing against the simple majority she's working to deny other kids throughout Washington the same things that she would want for her own students, and that's morally indefensible.

Shame on her.

Read more here, if any.