PSTA is continually working to find quality educational opportunities to assist you in improving at your craft.

National Board certification is one of the most empowering, self-guided methods to improve. Several institutions are ready to be a part of your growth.

PSTA is aligning with CSU Fullerton to provide face-to-face support for you as you attempt National Board Certification. CSU Fullerton also has scholarship money available to help defray the costs of certification.

National University is offering an on-line MA program completely aligned with National Board Certification. They too have the scholarship money available to defray the costs.

Since the State of California no longer offers a stipend for certification, gaining units will allow you to move on the salary schedule while you grow professionally.

UCR recently sent information on a Certificate Program in Exemplary Teaching and Instructional Leadership. This certificate program is designed to assist anyone preparing for National Board Certification as well as BTSA/PAR providers.

If your site principal is using National Board Certification or Take One! as a professional development plan, you may be able to earn units which can be applied to the salary schedule through one of these programs.

Please contact our office at PSTA@verizon.net for more information.

PSTA wholehearted agrees that teachers do make an important difference to student learning. We believe that individual teachers can have a differential effect on students' academic progress. We also believe however, that it is difficult to estimate precisely the size of the impact teachers have on student achievement or to report that effect clearly using student test scores.

From all of the research we have conducted we have found that:
· VAM estimates have proven to be unstable across statistical models, years, and classes that teachers teach.
· VAM does not account for student transiency rates - the results do not include this missing data.
· There is a strong correlation between teachers who score well on these value-added measures one year and how much their students gained the prior year. That implies that teachers who do well in these systems are benefiting from favorable classroom assignments.
· VAM promotes a short-term gains targeted on improving scores on a test, not in training students in the skills we have been asked by Dr. McCune to teach; specifically the 21st Century skills of developing right brain thinkers in creative problem-solving and involving students in authentic learning experiences. Instead, we measure the ability to perform well on standardized English and math tests.
· There is no way to monitor the affects that others on your site may have had on the academic gains or loses of your students.The research shows that the results of a teacher can vary a great deal from year to year.This runs counter to most people's notions that the true quality of a teacher is likely to change very little over time and raises questions about whether what is measured is largely a "teacher effect" or the effect of a wide variety of other factors. A number of factors have been found to have strong influences on student learning gains, aside from the teachers to whom their scores would be attached. These include the influences of students' other teachers-both previous teachers and, in secondary schools, current teachers of other subjects-as well as tutors or instructional specialists, who have been found often to have very large influences on achievement gains. These factors also include school conditions-such as the quality of curriculum materials, specialist or tutoring supports, class size, and other factors that affect learning.
· There are no scores for a substantial amount of our members - between 20-50% of our teaching staff do not administer tests. This includes elementary, middle and high school teachers and other non-teaching staff members. How would we place them on this ranking?

There are also many others researching this topic besides PSTA. They too believe that this method of measuring teachers is not recommended.

The Board on Testing and Assessment of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences stated on Oct. 7, 2009,
The report expresses concern that the department's proposed regulations place excessive emphasis on value-added approaches. Too little research has been done on these methods' validity to base high-stakes decisions about teachers on them.

In a report provided to the Commission on Value-Added methodology for Instructional Improvement, Derek Briggs states, "What concerns me most is the potential for misuse of VAMs for high stakes purposes." November 13-14, 2008

The RAND Corporation researchers reported in their research brief entitled
The Promise and Peril of Using Value-Added Modeling to Measure Teacher Effectiveness
"The current research base is insufficient to support the use of VAM for high-stakes decisions, and applications of VAM must be informed by an understanding of the potential sources of errors in teacher effects. Policymakers, practitioners, and VAM researchers need to work together so that research is informed by the practical needs and constraints facing users of VAM and so that implementation of the models is based on the kinds of inferences and decisions the research currently supports. If teachers are to be held accountable for the performance of their students, they deserve the best measurement of their effects on students that we can provide."

CTA GLBT Conference
October 29-31, 2010
Westin Mission Hills
71333 Dinah Shore Drive
Rancho Mirage, CA 92270

Register now for the second annual CTA GLBT Conference being held in the beautiful Palm Springs area of Rancho Mirage on October 29-31, 2010 at the Westin Mission Hills!

CTA's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues Advisory Committee (GLBTIAC) in pride presents this conference addressing issues involving educators, students and community. This conference is open to all CTA members and will serve as a venue to discuss and dialog about a variety of subjects affecting the entire membership and California's youth.

There will be a wide range of electives for you to choose from including:

Breaking the Silence
What’s in a Name
Trinidad
The Double Minority: GLBT Ethnic Minorities
Welcoming GLBT Parents and their Children
Unconscious Bias
Bullying
and much more
For a full list of sessions and descriptions, please click here.

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS
The conference begins with a welcome reception on Friday starting at 6:00 p.m. Saturday is filled with workshops and a keynote address by CTA President David Sanchez. The conference will continue with workshops Sunday and conclude with an entertaining and informative closing session.

EARLY REGISTRATION INCENTIVE
Register by September 30 and you will be placed in a drawing to have lunch with one of the CTA's executives President David Sanchez, Vice President Dean Vogel or Secretary-Treasurer Gail Mendes at the Saturday October 30th plated lunch.

Click here to register.

Please submit your request to attend by Friday, September 3 to psta@verizon.net

Training on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2010
9:00-3:15 p.m.

Designed with our ethnic minority members in mind, this conference will foster a better understanding of our organization and how our members can simultaneously benefit from and contribute to the strength of CTA.

Sessions include:

How the Budget Crisis Affects Minority Teachers and Students
What is a Service Center?
Demystifying the Model Minority Myth
Ivipam Pay-om Kawitch-am (These Are the People of the Land of the West)
Ethnic Minority Leadership Development
Team Building Strategies
"Rich Dad" Cash Flow 101
"I CAN DO IT"

Please submit your request to attend by Friday, September 3 to psta@verizon.net
Download the 2010-2011 CTA Statewide Conferences Brochure. Register now at www.cta.org/conferences