Bringing down the HOUSSE

In April, 2009 an employee of Seattle Public Schools (let’s call her Ms. Anonymous) opened my personnel file.  Using my resume, my college and graduate school transcripts, and my current teaching assignment for reference, she filled out a one page worksheet called a HOUSSE (High Objective Uniform State Standard of Evaluation), and set in motion a chain of events that destroyed my teaching career. 

Audits, Damned Audits

Every year school districts throughout Washington are audited by the State Auditor.  In 2008, after they were done auditing Seattle Public Schools, the State Auditor released a report stating (among other things) that ‘Seattle School District No. 1 does not have adequate internal controls to ensure accuracy of Highly Qualified Teacher data’.

Federal law demands that teachers must be Highly Qualified in the subjects they are teaching.   This includes special education teachers who are teaching core subjects to special education students.  This law has been on the books for about 10 years, school districts have to comply and federal education money is tied to it.  So, it’s not good to be in violation for a number of very important reasons. 

I agree with the spirit of the law requiring teachers to be Highly Qualified.  Even special education teachers should be Highly Qualified.  Who could or would be against such a thing?  The problem comes from the practicality of implementation.  The feds left implementation up to the individual states. 

In most states the teachers are responsible for reporting their Highly Qualified status.  There are procedures and guidelines in place, including safeguards to ensure that the teacher is not providing inaccurate information.  In most instances a teacher who provides false information in order to gain Highly Qualified status will be fired.  Veteran teachers who are not Highly Qualified in the subjects they teach have 1 year to get Highly Qualified or they lose their positions. 

Washington is not like most states.  It isn’t up to the teachers to report their Highly Qualified status.  In Washington ‘District personnel have been authorized by OSPI to determine a teacher’s Highly Qualified status’.  And get this, school districts are not required to get consent from the teacher, or even inform them that the district has made a determination regarding their Highly Qualified status.  If the District has teachers teaching subjects that they are not Highly Qualified in, then the District and the teacher have to draw up a plan to get that teacher Highly Qualified. The District also has to inform parents that one of their child’s teachers is not Highly Qualified.  Sounds like a lot of work, with the potential for pissing off a lot of parents, if a district has non-Highly Qualified teachers in core subjects.  If a School District inaccurately designates one of its teachers Highly Qualified, there is no procedure in place to detect it.  The Audit revealed only that Seattle had been inconsistent in doing the reporting.   

Can you see the inherent problem here?  There is no oversight.  If a District wants to appear to comply with the requirements then they can simply use the HOUSSE worksheet, the teacher’s personnel file and designate practically any veteran teacher Highly Qualified.  Hell, they can use this form and designate anybody Highly Qualified.  How can I make such a claim? 

READ ON:

By now you may be curious about the subject that I was suddenly Highly Qualified to teach.  It’s Mathematics.  Big deal?  For me, it is. 

Math is not my best subject.  I took 3 years of math in high school, one semester of statistics in college, and a course on how to teach elementary school math in grad school.  Yes, I have taught math, but that was to students who had skills that topped out at the 5^th grade level.  You get me into anything beyond basic math and I am lost.   

Still, Ms. Anonymous in HR, using what she had in front of her on her desk, decided that I was Highly Qualified in Math.  Well, she didn’t use everything on her desk did she?  I bet there was a phone on her desk.  How incredibly easy it would have been to pick up the phone and call me.  The conversation would have been about 30 seconds long.  Maybe it would have gone like this:

RING! RING!

“Hello?”

“Mr. Cummings?”

“Yes.”

“This is Ms. Anonymous down at HR.”

“Hi, how are you?” (I am very polite).

“Fine, thank you.  Mr. Cummings I am filling out paperwork on our teachers to see if they can be designated as Highly Qualified in certain subjects, and I was about to complete the paperwork on you in order to designate you Highly Qualified in Math.”

“Math?  Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Well, stop, please.”

“What? Why?”

“Because there is no way that I should ever be considered Highly Qualified in Math.  It’s a ridiculous idea.”

“Oh, but, on your resume you state that you taught Special Education Math while you were at your last teaching job and you were there for 5 years.”

“I was at that school for 5 years but I taught Math for less than one full school year.  Besides I was teaching Special Education Math, how to make a budget and balance a checkbook, that kind of stuff.  I don’t have the education or the skills necessary to teach anything beyond that.”

“Oh! Wow, am I glad I called you, I would have made a terrible mistake that could eventually have cost you your job!”

“In that case, thank you very much; I certainly wouldn’t want that to happen!”

“Goodbye Mr. Cummings.”

“Goodbye Ms. Anonymous.”

Unfortunately that conversation never happened.  Not only that, I had no idea whatsoever that I, as a Special Education Teacher, was required to be Highly Qualified in the subjects I taught.  Yes, I co-taught math with General Education Math teachers for two school years but I mostly   dealt with classroom management issues, and sometimes (mostly in the second year), took the lead, but I had to teach myself the math first.  Am I Highly Qualified?  “Hell no!” is how my friend and former co-teacher responded when I put the question to her.

Besides, the only way I could be vulnerable to dismissal would be if they shut down the program I was in, transfer me into a Special Education Math position and demand that I teach Grade-Level (6^th, 7^th, and 8^th) CMP-2 Math to my Special Education students. 

And:

That’s exactly what happened. In June 2009, the principal at my school informed me that the program I had taught in for two years was being disbanded (a huge mistake in itself) and that the following school year I had been assigned to teach special education math.  I really had no choice, if I refused, I would have to find somewhere else to work.  I very, very reluctantly agreed. 

I was not told that I would have to use CMP-2, if I had, I would have said no and started looking for work.  CMP-2 is an absolutely ineffective curriculum even for general education kids.  If you don’t believe me, ask the US Department of Education.  Or go to Where’s The Math and read what those folks have to say.

That summer I spent way too much time (ask the wife and kids) preparing for the following year. 

I started the 2009-2010 school year more prepared than I have ever been in my entire career.  The courses I had developed were research-based and I knew that my kids would progress steadily.  I was confident, not so much in myself as a math teacher, but in my ability to create an effective method for helping my kids gain the skills that they needed.

My teaching assignment for the year was 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grade Special Education math classes plus 6^th and 8^th grade Math Improvement classes.  (Math Improvement is for all those kids who don’t pass the Math portion of the Measurement of Student Progress, Washington’s mandated test).  That amounts to 5 different courses, which is a heavy work-load.  And that’s in addition to my case-load of Special Ed kids.

I was assigned a new supervisor for the 2009-10 school year.  We met for the first time in the middle of October.  At that meeting I was ordered to abandon the curriculum that I had developed and use CMP-2 for my 3 Special Education classes.  There was no discussion allowed.  She was going to observe me in two weeks.

So, what happened?

I am a very good teacher.  I am not good at every aspect of the job, nobody is, but what I do well, I do better than most.  I am very effective with some of the hardest to reach students you would ever come across and I can get them to behave without ever having to resort to discipline referrals, or sending them to the principal.  I wrote my Master’s thesis on ways to teach Social Studies to At-risk Youth.  I make studying feudalism enjoyable!  And I can do this across ethnic, socio-economic and/or skill levels.

But I am not a math teacher (certainly not a CMP-2 math teacher); no matter what that damned HOUSSE worksheet says.  I had to teach myself much of the math that I then had to teach the kids, all while keeping up with my IEP’s and the two other classes I was still teaching. 

And this is real life, not a feel-good movie.  There would be no miracles.

In January 2010, even though my students were showing progress, I was placed on probation.  I was given until the end of April to complete the probationary period and at the end the Superintendent would receive the recommendation from my supervisor, and a 2^nd Evaluator hired by the district, as to whether my contract should be renewed. 

I gave it my best shot even though I knew that I had no chance. 

Surprisingly, I did well enough that the 2^nd evaluator recommended that my contract be renewed.  But, she was looking at the whole teacher, the one who treated his students with love and respect and who was a resource for other teachers when they were having a difficult time with a student and needed advice.  She recognized that I was an asset for the school and the District.  She also noted how hard I worked to make it through the probation successfully.  She couldn’t understand how anyone would push me into a math position in the first place.

My Supervisor saw none of that (or ignored it, I don’t know) and recommended to the Superintendent that my contract be non-renewed. 

I went to then-Superintendent Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson and pleaded to be given a chance to repeat the probationary period in a subject that I really had the skills to teach.  I pointed out that I had never received even 1 negative evaluation in my entire career.  I showed her the stats from the previous year where my co-teachers and I turned around some of the worst behaved kids in the school.  I asked only that I be given a fair chance.

She signed my non-renewal.

The Seattle Education Association supported me all along and continued to do so as I filed for a Due Process Hearing.  They paid for my lawyer, a mensch who has become one of my heroes.

The Due Process Hearing went on for 6 days (most go on for 1 or 2).  At the end, the Hearing Officer sided with the District.  He agreed that I had not been treated fairly but judged that the District had proceeded legally in my case.

My lawyer, my union, and I disagree with the Hearing Officer’s ruling.  There were many, many mis-steps made by my Supervisor, the School District and the Hearing Officer as well.  We filed an Appeal which will be heard in Superior Court next January.  In the meantime, I am not an employee of the District, but I am a Candidate for Seattle School Board. 

And in the end:

There aren’t any words that can describe how I felt during that year.  For 2 decades I gave my best effort to help my students- my children.  All of that was ignored as I was pushed out of my profession by a Supervisor who wanted me gone, who was completely unsupervised and who took advantage of a bad OSPI regulation to do the wrong thing. 

There is no reason to expect that she will ever ‘see the light’ about what she did.  After all, she was promoted the following school year and is now a Principal in our District.  Maybe she’ll be a Superintendent one day.  

History is filled with the stories of people who stepped on other people (and their families) on their way to success.  Sometimes they really do win.

But life is often like that isn’t it?  And as with anything in life, there is always something to learn.  I learned how people in positions of power can act badly.  I had the ‘opportunity’ to observe Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson’s negligence and lack of oversight in action.  I have personal experience regarding the toxic atmosphere that the good Doctor fostered and that poured down upon any employee who dared to speak out against an administrative staff that was out of control. 

Teachers throughout the State of Washington are vulnerable to the same thing that happened to me.  While I doubt that any other School District would pursue the course of action that was taken against me, I have no doubt that Seattle Public Schools would.  There has been no culture shift that would lead me to assume that the District might actually do the right thing by its teachers and treat them with the respect that a well-trained professional deserves.  There is no evidence to suggest that the current School Board would take its job seriously and actually provide real and rigorous oversight of the Superintendent.  No evidence at all.

Then again, if I am elected….