Thrasher faces allegations of ties to testing industry

The tests that bind: Questions emerge as Thrasher faces allegations of ties to testing industry. Is Florida manufacturing failure?

Reprinted in full from the Folio Weekly Flog. The article font and format is altered here.

Follow the money trail, my experienced journalist-friends tell me, and you will find the answers. But as possible links have emerged this week between Senate District 8 incumbent John Thrasher, his former lobbying clients, and the company hired to do Florida’s FCAT and new end-of-course testing, I’m finding more questions than answers.

How did NCS Pearson, with its history of bungling tests, get the FCAT contract in Florida in the first place?

Why did  Florida switch to Pearson  from its previous FCAT test vendor?

Is FCAT even a reliable testing tool? And wasn’t Duval County already administering its own end-of-course exams?

Deborah Gianoulis’ campaign charged John Thrasher with lying about his lobbying connection to the testing industry on Wednesday. (click here to read Tia Mitchell’s Times Union story.) Apparently, Thrasher listed the Educational Testing Service (ETS) as one of his lobbying clients in the official 2009 legislative registry, prior to running for and winning the office held by the late Senator Jim King late last year.

But in a Times Union article that appeared in April of this year, just after Thrasher’s teacher tenure-busting Senate Bill 6 was vetoed by Governor Charlie Crist, Thrasher told TU reporter Matt Dixon: “I never had any connection to [the testing companies].”

To understand the weight of the allegation, keep in mind that the company in charge of executing the $254 million FCAT testing contract for Florida, NCS Pearson, did $143 million in subcontract work for ETS from 2006 through 2008. ETS, in turn, was a client of Thrasher’s former lobbying company, Southern Strategy, which is why it was listed among dozens of his “principals,” i.e., lobbying clients, in the legislative registry.

Even if Thrasher never personally represented ETS, as he contends, his lobbying friends from Southern Strategy certainly did. And arguably, beginning with the 2009 session, Southern Strategy had their ringer—Thrasher—in the state senate. Lobbyists from Southern Strategy contributed $7,000 to Thrasher’s 2009 campaign, according to the press release from the Gianoulis campaign.

Advocates will remember that NCS Pearson was fined $14.7 million so far this year for tardy FCAT scores. The fines are still being tabulated as local districts continue to tally the damages they incurred from cramming promotional, placement and graduation decisions for the current school year into a shorter time frame.

The Miami Herald reported this summer that Pearson was hired by the state to run the FCAT despite serious problems the company had in the past with scoring tests for the College Board (an ETS division) as well as other standardized tests in various states. And now NCS Pearson also holds the contract in Florida for developing and administering the new End of Course (EOC) exams for high school and middle school courses. Florida voters should be concerned.

Legislation passed just this year requires that students pass an Algebra I end of course exam (EOC) in order to graduate. Those of us who rallied, called, and emailed against Senate Bill 6 will remember that EOC exams were one controversial part of that bill. Several local school boards argued that the cost of developing more tests would amount to an unfunded mandate for them.

But links between Thrasher and the testing industry might explain why he was so bound and determined to push the EOC bills through the legislature, un-tweaked. Might it be that the senator was less concerned with perceptions of unfunded mandates than with making sure there was law on the books to support an already funded testing contract for EOCs? Could the EOC piece have been included in the NCS Pearson contract even before the legislature mandated the tests?

This EOC development business should raise red flags among taxpayers, and here’s why: Duval County, unlike most counties, has been way ahead of the curve in developing, field testing and validating end of course exams, according to Chief Academic Officer Kathryn Leroy. She says that Duval has already developed dozens of middle and high school tests, at a cost of approximately $12,000 per exam. And while the county has administered its own EOC exams over the past four years, it will yield to using the state sanctioned test—Pearson’s Algebra I test—this year. So what happens to the time, talent and treasure Duval spent on EOCs? Doesn’t the new Pearson EOC contract duplicate hundreds of thousands of dollars of work already completed in Duval? When Folio posed these questions to the district, Leroy answered only that Duval’s tests would continue to be used as early assessments and mid-year benchmarks.

But there’s more that concerns me—not just as a civic journalist who’s been tracking education issues, but as a parent. When the state of Florida switched to NCS Pearson as FCAT vendor this year, public school students lost the “NRT” or norm-referenced test that had been administered to them along with the FCAT until 2008.

The “NRT” is based on the Stanford 10 (a test administered at many private schools) and assigns a percentile ranking for students rather than determining grade level proficiency, as the FCAT does.

As Folio reported on September 28, Duval students who barely passed the state’s FCAT reading subtest for 10th grade, also scored a median 87th percentile ranking for reading on the NRT; that score indicates a higher reading level than 87% of the nation’s 10th graders. That could mean that students who don’t make the cutoff score—students who fail the FCAT and fail to graduate—may also score, on other objective tests, as very good readers.

In that sense, Florida may be manufacturing failure.

The test-industry tie to Thrasher that the Gianoulis campaign alleges may be only a single thread in a much more insidious political tapestry. Specifically, as the centerpiece of Jeb Bush’s education legacy—the FCAT—gets thrown into question, lawmakers may have simply moved to get rid of the things that raise those pesky questions, like the NRT. As an added bonus, removing the NRT as an element from the FCAT testing package would make for a less expensive contract. So switching from the state’s previous FCAT vendor, which had included the NRT piece, to NCS-Pearson-sans-NRT, is going to appear to be a cost-saver. Kind of like french-fries are cheaper at McDonald’s than the whole Big-Mac combo meal.

But it leaves concerned parents asking, “Where’s the beef?” Can we trust that the FCAT or its descendant, FCAT 2.0, reliably does the job, when there’s no GCAT in Georgia or HCAT in Hawaii, to provide any context?

Parents have lost confidence in the FCAT, according to one St. Petersburg Times poll. Fifty-two percent of parents there said they didn’t believe the FCAT is a reliable test of student or school performance. Questions about how the NCS Pearson bidding decision was made, and the ins and outs of the 5-year FCAT testing contract with Pearson, far outweigh, in my mind, the Thrasher-ETS-Pearson connection alleged by the Gianoulis campaign. Although it might prove to be the ragged end of thread woven into the whole lucrative enterprise.

— Julie Delegal

Florida GOP Releases Financial Records

According to Tallahassee.com, the Florida Republican Party, under state and federal investigation for the lavish expense-account lifestyle of its ousted leaders, released records of about $7 million in credit-card expenses Friday.

Charge receipts for 31 past and current elected officials and party employees detailed what political observers already knew — that ex-Chairman Jim Greer and former party executive director Delmar Johnson liked luxury hotels, traveled in style, ate well and billed the party for costly entertainment and gift expenses. To a lesser extent, so did some legislators and executive officials who constantly raised money for the party on the cocktail and golf circuit.

Greer and other party officers had refused for months to release the foot-high stack of American Express charge slips, even as some were subpoenaed in the grand-jury investigation of former House Speaker Ray Sansom, R-Destin, and others were leaked to reporters in recent months. But state Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, who became chairman when Greer was ousted Feb. 20, went through the bills with the GOP executive committee two weeks ago and ordered them released.

“We’ve got a forensic audit going on and we’re going to drill down deeper to make sure that any of these expenditures on those cards were legitimate, furthering the interests of the Republican Party,” Thrasher said. “If they weren’t we’ll contact those people and ask them to explain, and if there’s no party purpose we’ll accept their check.” There’s more, read the rest.

If Thrasher Did His Homework…

By CHERYL MIKAN MANUCY

Sen. John Thrasher’s judgment of Senate Bill 6 for merit pay for teachers, reminds me of a plaque which read, “Which way did they go, which way did they go? Take me to them. I am their leader.”

A recent article in the newspaper verifies that Thrasher has not done his homework on the issue, something teachers face daily from their students. Guess if I were Thrasher’s teacher, I wouldn’t receive a merit increase based on his performance.

Did he do any research on the facts surrounding our teachers? Does he know what happens in the classroom? Has he talked to any teachers? Did he talk to our school board — even one member?

Thrasher’s district includes portions of five counties. He should have contacted each of these school boards and the teacher organizations for their input. These are the folks who know the system.

Thrasher should remember that he works for us and for the teachers. He should make his decisions based on fact and the voice of the people he represents — not on his limited personal knowledge. A good leader listens to those who are better informed than he.

Has Thrasher been in a classroom lately? I have — I’m a retired grandmother who sometimes volunteers at my grandson’s school. Until volunteering and witnessing first hand what is happening in our schools, I would often remark, “what are our teachers doing?”.

Is Charlie Crist Turning His Back on Teachers?

According recent article posted on Jacksonville.com, tensions continue to run high on teacher merit bills this season.

A key committee sent one of the most controversial bills of the legislative session to the House floor on a party-line vote Monday evening after an often emotional meeting that stretched on for nearly eight hours.

The GOP-dominated House Education Policy Council voted 12-5 to approve the measure overhauling teacher contracts after hearing from dozens of witnesses, many of them teachers or administrators opposed to the bill.

If the bill clears the House without amendment, it will go directly to Gov. Charlie Crist for his signature or veto. An amendment would require another trip to the Senate, which narrowly approved the bill 21-17 last month.

Crist suggested again Monday that he will sign the bill.
The measure, originally sponsored by Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, would do away with several teacher employment protections for new teachers and base future pay increases on student achievement. It would also overhaul teacher certification and teacher preparation programs at Florida colleges.

The meeting was often emotional, with teachers and audience members clapping or waving their hands as a sign of support to speakers with whom they agreed.
Chairman Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, said about 120 people had signed up to speak. Todd Byars, a former teacher of the year in Leon County, was escorted out of the committee room by Capitol officials after an outburst when testimony was finally cut off.  See Jacksonville.com for the rest of their coverage.

Todd Byars is well known among teachers on Facebook groups opposing the recent SB6 bill, better known among the public as the teacher merit-pay bill. There are at least 11 teacher groups on Facebook, the largest with over 74,000 members.  One can imagine the outrage this will spark if Crist signs this bill into law.

Todd W. Byars’ Ethics Complaint RE: John Thrasher

Ethics Complaint filed today about noon.

RE: Senator John Thrasher (District 8 – Duval )

Todd W. Byars
6555 Tom Roberts One
Tallahassee, FL 32305

April 20, 2010

Philip Claypool
Executive Director and General Counsel
State of Florida Commission on Ethics
P.O. Drawer 15709
Tallahassee, Florida 32317-5709

RE: Senator John Thrasher (District 8 – Duval )

Dear Mr. Claypool:

This letter, and the attached complaint Form 50, do serve as a filed complaint against Senator John Thrasher, representing Senate District 8. Based on newspaper, television and Internet news being reported, it appears Senator Thrasher has, on numerous occasions violated the public trust, particularly Florida Statues as listed below.

Accordingly, the Florida Commission on Ethics has jurisdiction over these matters and Senator Thrasher pursuant to Florida Statutes, Section 112.322. The investigation of John Thrasher may also include State and Federal agencies separate from this filing.

The following discussion and attached documents will demonstrate a violation of Florida Statutes, Section 112.311(1), which provides that “public office may not be used for private gain”.

News Agencies and on-line resources indicate a conflict of interest and financial gain by Senator John Thrasher who was until recently, a paid Lobby for Testing Companies and Charter School groups. The referring stories are attached with links or other information to the source. Due to a request for brevity in the instructions for Complaint Form 50, only 2 Items are attached.

Discussion of each item and its relevance to this complaint:

Item 1: Article from Florida Times Union – ‘Testing Companies paid Thrasher’s former lobbying firm.’ John Thrasher was a paid lobby for the firms until very recently. As such he is paid to promote these causes.. This is a conflict of interest when he proposes legislation that benefits his testing companies and charter schools statewide. Senator Thrasher is being paid as a Senator and a Lobby. This is a violation of the Statutes listed above and possibly others.

Item 2: Article from St. Augustine Record – ‘Thrasher denies lobbying for testing firms.’ Similar to Item 1 this article discusses the payments made to Thrasher’s Lobby Firm. Again Senator Thrasher is in violation of Florida Statutes against ‘private gain.’

Attached to this complaint are copies of documents, referenced above.

This complaint requests a complete review of Senator John Thrasher and his promotion of legislation that promotes Testing, Charter Schools, For Profit Schools, or any legislation relating to Education in the State of Florida.

Further, I consider this document to be part of my civic duties and the exercise of my First Amendment right to Free Speech as guaranteed under the Constitution of The United States.

Please contact me in writing with any official requests for additional information. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Todd W. Byars

As filed.

SB6 Expected to Come Up Again This Session

Despite recent news reports to the contrary, an undisclosed source tells Tangerine, Florida Blog that John Thrasher has rewritten Senate Bill 6 and plans to parade it out next week. Knowing the parents, teachers and education supporters will be prepared next session, the Florida GOP plans to cram it through during the lull of celebration that followed Charlie Crist’s veto of the bill. Parents may monitor the situation by joining Moms and Dads Against SB6. There will be no rest for foes of this bill until the session is over.

#SB6 #VetoSB6 #SB6_2 #MomsandDadsAgainstSB6

I Am a Teacher in Florida

2/6/10 Editor: This was found a a Facebook page during the days immediately preceeding the vote for the House version of SB6. The post was so long it was painstakingly broken up into the alloted comment space, one comment after another. It is posted here in full because it is easier to read in one location. I do not know Cagle Miller-Jamee, but she speaks to me and many others. It is her story and, at the same time, our story too.  Enjoy.

 

I rise before dawn each day and find myself nestled in my classroom hours before the morning commute is in full swing in downtown Orlando. I scour the web along with countless other resources to create meaningful learning experiences for my 24 students each day. I reflect on the successes of lessons taught and re-work ideas until I feel confident that they will meet the needs of my diverse learners. I have finished my third cup of coffee in my classroom before the business world has stirred. My contracted hours begin at 7:00 and end at 3:00. As the sun sets around me and people are beginning to enjoy their dinner, I lock my classroom door, having worked 4 hours unpaid.

  

  

I greet the smiling faces of my students and am reminded anew of their challenges, struggles, successes, failures, quirks, and needs. I review their 504s, their IEPs, their PMPs, their histories trying to reach them from every angle possible. They come in hungry—I feed them. They come in angry—I counsel them. They come in defeated—I encourage them. And this is all before the bell rings. 

  

I am a teacher in Florida. 

  

I am told that every student in my realm must score on or above grade level on the FCAT each year. Never mind their learning discrepancies, their unstable home lives, their prior learning experiences. In the spring, they are all assessed with one measure and if they don’t fit, I have failed. Students walk through my doors reading at a second grade level and by year’s end can independently read and comprehend early 4th grade texts, but this is no matter. One of my students has already missed 30 school days this year, but that is overlooked. If they don’t perform well on this ONE test in early March, their learning gains are irrelevant. They didn’t learn enough. They didn’t grow enough. I failed them. In the three months that remain in the school year after this test, I am expected to begin teaching 5th grade curriculum to my 4th grade students so that they are prepared for next year’s test. 

  

I am a teacher in Florida. 

  

I am expected to create a culture of students who will go on to become the leaders of our world. When they exit my classroom, they should be fully equipped to compete academically on a global scale. They must be exposed to different worldviews and diverse perspectives, and yet, most of my students have never left Sanford, Florida. Field trips are now frivolous. I must provide new learning opportunities for them without leaving the four walls of our classroom. So I plan. I generate new ways to expose them to life beyond their neighborhoods through online exploration and digital field trips. I stay up past The Tonight Show to put together a unit that will allow them to experience St. Augustine without getting on a bus. I spend weekends taking pictures and creating a virtual world for them to experience, since the State has determined it is no longer worthwhile for them to explore reality. Yes. My students must be prepared to work within diverse communities, and yet they are not afforded the right to ever experience life beyond their own town. 

  

I am a teacher in Florida. 

  

I accepted a lower salary with the promise of a small increase for every year taught. I watched my friends with less education than me sign on for six figure jobs while I embraced my $28k starting salary. I was assured as I signed my contract that although it was meager to start, my salary would consistently grow each year. That promise has been broken. I’m still working with a meager salary, and the steps that were contracted to me when I accepted a lower salary are now deemed “unnecessary.” 

  

I am a teacher in Florida. 

  

I spent $2500 in my first year alone to outfit an empty room so that it would promote creative thinking and a desire to learn and explore. I now average between $1000-2000 that I pay personally to supplement the learning experiences that take place in my classroom. I print at home on my personal printer and have burned through 12 ink cartridges this school year alone. I purchase the school supplies my students do not have. I buy authentic literature so my students can be exposed to authors and worlds beyond their textbooks. I am required to teach Social Studies and Writing without any curriculum/materials provided, so I purchase them myself. I am required to conduct Science lab without Science materials, so I buy those, too. The budgeting process has determined that copies of classroom materials are too costly, so I resort to paying for my copies at Staples, refusing to compromise my students’ education because high-ranking officials are making inappropriate cuts. It is February, and my entire class is out of glue sticks. Since I have already spent the $74 allotted to me for warehouse supplies, if I don’t buy more, we will not have glue for the remainder of the year. The projects I dream up are limited by the incomprehensible lack of financial support. I am expected to inspire my students to become lifelong learners, and yet we don’t have the resources needed to nurture their natural sense of wonder if I don’t purchase them myself. My meager earning is now pathetic after the expenses that come with teaching effectively. 

  

I am a teacher in Florida. 

  

The government has scolded me for failing to prepare my students to compete in this technologically driven world. Students in Japan are much more equipped to think progressively with regards to technology. Each day, I turn on the two computers afforded me and pray for a miracle. I apply for grants to gain new access to technology and compete with thousands of other teachers who are hoping for the same opportunity. I battle for the right to use the computer lab and feel fortunate if my students get to see it once a week. Why don’t they know how to use technology? The system’s budget refuses to include adequate technology in classrooms; instead, we are continually told that dry erase boards and overhead projectors are more than enough. 

  

I am a teacher in Florida. 

I went to school at one of the best universities in the country and completed undergraduate and graduate programs in Education. I am a master of my craft. I know what effective teaching entails, and I know how to manage the curriculum and needs of the diverse learners in my full inclusion classroom. I graduated at the top of my class and entered my first year of teaching confident and equipped to teach effectively. Sadly, I am now being micro-managed, with my instruction dictated to me. I am expected to mold “out-of-the-box” thinkers while I am forced to stay within the lines of the instructional plans mandated by policy-makers. I am told what I am to teach and when, regardless of the makeup of my students, by decision-makers far away from my classroom or even my school. The message comes in loud and clear that a group of people in business suits can more effectively determine how to provide exemplary instruction than I can. My expertise is waved away, disregarded, and overlooked. I am treated like a day-laborer, required to follow the steps mapped out for me, rather than blaze a trail that I deem more appropriate and effective for my students—students these decision-makers have never met. 

I am a teacher in Florida. 

  

I am overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated by most. I spend my weekends, my vacations, and my summers preparing for school, and I constantly work to improve my teaching to meet the needs of my students. I am being required to do more and more, and I’m being compensated less and less. 

  

I am a teacher in Florida, not for the pay or the hardships, the disregard or the disrespect; I am a teacher in Florida because I am given the chance to change lives for the good, to educate and elevate the minds and hearts of my students, and to show them that success comes in all shapes and sizes, both in the classroom and in the community. 

  

I am a teacher in Florida today, but as I watch many of my incredible, devoted coworkers being forced out of the profession as a matter of survival, I wonder: How long will I be able to remain a teacher in Florida? 

  

 

Cagle Miller-Jamee

  

  

 

Disaster for Florida teachers: Senate Bill 6

Support by President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan for using student standardized test scores as one measure to evaluate teacher performance gives license for legislators to take that thinking to extremes.

That’s what is happening in Florida, where the state Senate is considering legislation, Senate Bill 6, that would, if passed, go a long way toward destroying the teaching profession in the state.

It already has been approved by the Senate Ways and Means committee, 15-8, on a party-line vote, and is scheduled to go to the chamber floor this week. The Florida House would then have to approve it.

The bill, sponsored by state Sen. John Thrasher, the new head of Florida’s Republican Party, would require that school systems evaluate and pay teachers primarily on the basis of student test scores