| 
Elizabeth Tatum (left) and Mary Reed examine student writing samples
during a class on the MPS comprehensive literacy framework. The
class discussed ways to help students improve their writing and
communication skills.
By Bill Hurley
OnWEAC Editor
You could just tell that Elizabeth Tatum and Mary Reed were excited
about the new skills they were learning at a daylong training
April 13 at Custer High School in Milwaukee.
Oh, sure, they were there so they could keep their jobs as general
educational assistants in the Milwaukee Public School system.
But they were taking so much more than that out of the experience.
“We’re learning a lot,” said Reed, who works at
Webster Middle School. “We’re trying not only to keep
our jobs, but we’re getting filled in on what students need
to help them succeed.”
“This will help me when I’m helping the students write
papers,” added Tatum, who works at MacDowell Montessori School.
 | | Cheryl Barczak |  | | Shannon Gordon |  | | Deb Berndt | Reed and Tatum are among nearly 600 general educational assistants
partaking in an extraordinary months-long training program organized
through a joint venture of Milwaukee Public Schools, the Milwaukee
Teachers’ Education Association, the Milwaukee Educational
Assistants Association and the WEAC Professional Development Academy
(PDA).
The training is in response to a new federal law – often
referred to as the “No Child Left Behind” act –
that requires educational assistants, sometimes called teacher
aides, to be “highly qualified” by next January or lose
their jobs. Basically, the law requires them to possess 48 college
credits, an associate’s degree, pass a stringent test or
meet comparable requirements.
Representatives of MPS and the MTEA got together and decided
that a convenient, comprehensive training program was the best
approach. Rather than just have the educational assistants pass
a test or scout around for college courses, MPS and MTEA agreed
it made sense to provide a single in-house training program through
which they could not only meet the new requirements of the law
but learn new teaching strategies that they could put to use in
the classroom.
They decided to use a proven training program developed by the
WEAC Professional Development Academy – the Education Support
Professional Certificate program.
That’s what brought Reed, Tatum and the other educational
assistants to Custer High School April 13 – the first of
four daylong districtwide training programs for educational assistants
to help them meet the new requirements. Classes were held throughout
the school. Another daylong program is scheduled for May 13, and
two others are planned for early next school year.
Each daylong session provides 7½ hours of training for
each educational assistant. Anyone who attends the four daylong
sessions will earn 30 of the required 40 hours of training to
obtain an ESP Certificate. They can earn the other 10 hours through
after-school and Saturday classes being planned as part of the
MPS-MTEA program.
Once they get their ESP Certificate, they will be considered
“highly qualified” under the law, whose official title
is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
Making sure that the nearly 600 Milwaukee general educational
assistants get the necessary training by the end of the year is
“a massive undertaking,” said Cheryl Barczak, an MTEA
assistant executive director who is organizing the program. But
MTEA and MPS are doing everything they can to make the training
accessible and to help everyone complete it, said Barczak and
Shannon Gordon, the school district’s ESEA implementation
and compliance manager.
| “We don’t want to lose any of
our people. Our goal is to do whatever we have to to keep
every one of them."
--------------
Cheryl Barczak | “We don’t want to lose any of our people,” Barczak
said. “Our goal is to do whatever we have to to keep every
one of them.
“We’re giving them every opportunity so that they know
far enough in advance that if they don’t do this, December
31 is their last day.”
The district and school principals also are working to inform
every educational assistant of the requirements and the training
opportunities so that nobody is left out, Gordon said.
“We’re telling every one of our people that we value
you and we want to strengthen your skills, and we want to keep
you,” she said.
Under the PDA program, the educational assistants must complete
a “reflective assessment” of each class, explaining
how they are going to use the information they learned to improve
their work in the classroom. They compile a folder of these assessments
and then turn them into the PDA for review and approval.
Once the educational assistants complete the 40-hour PDA program
and earn their certificate, they must go through an assessment
process. This is where school district officials observe the educational
assistant on three occasions working with students and complete
an evaluation form. If the assistant passes the evaluation, he
or she will be certified to continue working as an educational
assistant under the ESEA. If the evaluation is unsatisfactory,
the assistant will be given assistance – such as more in-service
training or a mentor’s help – in order to meet the ESEA
standards.
Not everybody was excited about the training at first, and Barczak
said she had to personally talk some people out of their reluctance
to participate. Understandably, she said, some educational assistants
feel insulted by the ESEA requirements. In some cases, these people
have been doing their jobs for 20 or 30 years, and now the federal
government comes in and says they have to prove themselves.
“But I told them, ‘Don’t throw away your career,’
” Barczak said.
“For most of these people, this isn’t just a job,”
she said. “Many of these people grew up in the neighborhoods
where they work. They’re the ones who understand that Suzie’s
tired today because of the shootings in her neighborhood last
night.
“We really don’t want to lose any of our people. I
would be very upset with a person who doesn’t do this, and
we lose him or her.”
Barczak said she has learned from attending conferences that
districts throughout the country are struggling with ways to get
their educational assistants – sometimes called teacher aides
– to meet the ESEA’s requirements. The MPS/ MTEA program
is a model for doing it right, Barczak and Gordon said.
MPS is covering the entire cost of the program, using funds provided
through the ESEA. The four daylong training programs are paid
days for staff, who use what is called “banking time”
to attend. Under the MTEA contract, staff earn “banking time”
when they give up prep time on regular work days and bank that
time for future use for in-service, staff development, prep time,
or colleague interaction time. The only cost to the staff, Barczak
said, comes down to time – the additional 10 hours of classes
they must take beyond the four daylong training programs.
The WEAC Professional Development Academy has been offering the
ESP Certificate program for 10 years, and PDA Director Deb Berndt
said she is excited to expand the program to ESEA training.
“The ESP Certificate program is an excellent model for use
in helping education support professionals meet the requirements
of the ESEA and become ‘highly qualified,’ ” Berndt
said. Some other districts are using the program to some degree,
but Milwaukee’s involvement “is on a much, much larger
scale,” she said. The ESP Certificate program actually goes
beyond the requirements of the ESEA, she said.
To earn an ESP Certificate, participants must complete 40 hours
of instruction, including five in four core curriculum areas (a
total of 20 hours), 10 in elective/job-specific area, and 10 that
may be applied to any of the curricular areas. The four core areas
are communication, legal/ethical, behavior management, and growth
and development.
Another advantage of using the ESP Certificate program for ESEA
training, Berndt said, is that participants have a broad range
of options for completing the program. For example, they can in
some cases earn credits at the WEAC Winter Conference, WEAC Convention
and possibly the WEAC Summer Academy, she said.
“We want to make it as convenient as possible for our ESP
members to earn a certificate and to achieve the ‘highly
qualified’ standard,” she said.
Berndt said she is always interested in hearing from other local
associations and school districts considering the use of the PDA
program for ESEA training.
For educational assistants like Tatum, the program is the perfect
fit, and it’s about much more than just doing time to keep
her job.
“I have a lot of students who can’t read and get frustrated,”
she said. “Hopefully, with the help of this training, I can
learn to help them a little bit more.”
What are the ESEA requirements? The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 2001 requires
that all paraprofessionals working in Title I schools must be
“highly qualified.”
The law, also known as the “No Child Left Behind” act,
requires each local education agency receiving assistance to ensure
that all paraprofessionals hired after the date of enactment of
the ESEA (January 8, 2002) and working in a program supported
with Title 1 funds shall have:
- Completed at least two years of study at an accredited institution
of higher education that is equivalent to at least 48 semester
hours; or
- Obtained an associate's (or higher) degree; or
- Met a rigorous standard of quality and can demonstrate, through
a formal state or local academic assessment:
- knowledge of, and the ability to assist in instructing
reading, writing, and mathematics; or
- knowledge of, and the ability to assist in instructing
reading readiness, writing readiness, and mathematics readiness,
as appropriate.
All paraprofessionals hired on or before January 8, 2002, must
satisfy the requirements by January 8, 2006.
Under the agreement between Milwaukee Public Schools, the Milwaukee
Teachers’ Education Association and the WEAC Professional
Development Academy, most MPS staff must complete the ESP Certificate
program by November 1 to maintain their jobs past December 31.
What is the 'No Child Left Behind' law? The Elementary and Secondary Education Act is the main federal
education law, describing federal requirements for the nation’s
public schools, most of which receive some form of federal aid.
ESEA was first enacted in 1965. It is revised every five to seven
years.
The latest revision, passed by Congress in 2001 and signed into
law by President Bush in 2002, implements dramatic changes to
federal education laws. The Bush administration refers to the
revision as the “No Child Left Behind” law, but critics
say that description is very misleading.
The law is extremely controversial, largely because it strongly
emphasizes standardized tests that rob school districts and teachers
of control over their classrooms and the content of their educational
offerings. Rather than providing support to help schools succeed,
the law emphasizes punitive measures against schools that fail
to meet what many believe are unreasonable requirements. Also,
critics say the law is severely underfunded, making it nearly
impossible for many schools to meet its standards.
For more about the law, visit the OnWEAC Resource
Page on the ESEA. Posted May 13, 2005 |