IEA Executive Directory Audrey Soglin.
Today’s Tribune features a story by Dawn Turner Trice about Gage Park high school teacher Victor Harbison.
The Gage Park High School teacher wants his students to succeed academically, but he also wants them to learn how to solve problems affecting their lives and community. In short, he wants to teach them to be good citizens.
It’s an area of teaching that’s not easily measured for its impact on standardized test scores. It’s also not easy to quantify when assessing a teacher’s abilities. That’s true now under CPS’ new teacher evaluation system rolled out in 2012, and it was true under the old one.
The difference is that under the old rubric, Harbison said, he’d always gotten positive reviews. But he said that changed earlier this year when he received low marks during an informal session evaluating his classroom instruction skills.
You can imagine that didn’t sit well with him.
“Administrators are constantly asking: ‘How does what you do boost reading scores?'” he said. “My students come from communities with lots of challenges. If there was one model to fix (low test scores), then all you would need to do is look at a successful school like Whitney Young (Magnet High School) and copy what they’re doing.
“The question should be: ‘How do we meet the needs of the community we serve?'”
While Harbison is a uniquely talented teacher, his story is not an unique one.
Add him to the list of good teachers rated a bad by the Performance Reform Evaluation Act (PERA).
Like similar evaluation systems across the country, PERA links teacher performance reviews to standardized test scores (VAM).
PERA was drafted in 2010 and passed by the legislature in order for the state to qualify for a half million dollar Race to the Top grant. VAM was one of four requirement demanded by Education Secretary Arne Duncan for any grant application to be considered.
PERA became law. But that year the grant was rejected by Duncan anyway.
The sad tale I have told many times is that when Governor Quinn was looking for somebody to head the committee that would draft the grant application that required changes to the teacher evaluation system in Illinois, he turned to our IEA Executive Director Audrey Soglin.
Then Soglin was picked to sit at the table with Stand for Children’s Jonah Edelman and together they drafted Senate Bill 7, which used PERA to undermine collective bargaining, tenure and seniority.
Fred Klonsky 
You mean, NOT a unique one. ???
As the IEA directs its teachers to vote for the lesser of two evils, and I’m sure that Pat Quinn and Paul Vallas will be the next lesser evils, the IEA Director appears to be linked to one of the most evil bills enacted against teachers. It was much more than so-called “tenure” – since that term has several possible definitions. The loss of many aspects of due process as well as the acceptance of disproved methods of evaluation that lead to the firing of superb teachers are now a reality. Soglin, Edelman and a few other hired guns are responsible for that.
The destructive insanity of hiring and retaining Soglin puts the lie the mantra,”Rah-rah! Praise our union leadership no matter what!”
I am strongly pro-union, even as I lament Klickna’s lack of leadership. People in union leadership positions come and go. Klickna and Soglin cannot go fast enough, and there is no sense in pretending otherwise.