Monday, June 25, 2012

Unions Celebrate a "Win"?

to celebrate this as a win, is akin to the South declaring a victory during a skirmish in the closing days of the Civil War. This isn’t a win, it’s a tourniquet. It may stop the bleeding temporarily, but once gangrene sets in we’re doomed.

This blog by Opine I will is worth cross posting because it addresses my favorite topic, the actions of our union leaders. The link is: http://rlratto.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/another-nice-mess-youve-got-us-into/.

I hope this guy teaches in NYC and joins up with MORE. Look at the list of "wins."

Also see James Eterno at ICE: TEACHER RATING LAW LOOKS LIKE ANOTHER EMPTY UFT VICTORY


Another nice mess you’ve got us into..

Oliver Hardy is well know for looking at Stan Laurel, who appears clueless, and with a frustrated tone exclaims, “another nice mess you got us  into!”
Nothing could be more fitting, than Ollie’s words when I look at the predicament  teachers all across New York State are in right now.
This past week the following  statement of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten following passage of the teacher privacy bill by both houses of the New York Legislature had heads spinning. She stated,
 New York State United Teachers President Richard C. Iannuzzi said,
Who are they kidding?? Teacher’s all across the state are suppose to celebrate legislation that allow, evaluations based on junk science, and may determine their future livelihoods, to be released to parents as a good thing?
Let’s keep in mind, this legislation was quickly negotiated to fix a much greater threat. The courts already declared that these evaluations can be released to the media, and something needed to be done. So in that light, it could have been much worse. But to celebrate this as a win, is akin to the South declaring a victory during a skirmish in the closing days of the Civil War. This isn’t a win, it’s a tourniquet. It may stop the bleeding temporarily, but once gangrene sets in we’re doomed.
 The way I look at it, our unions (we) negotiated ourselves into this nice mess.We negotiated a deal that allowed teachers to be evaluated using junk science.
Even though there is no evidence that supports Value Added Measures as a means of calculating teacher effectiveness,  we agreed to it.
  • We negotiated rubrics that will be used in teacher evaluations, yet many of these rubrics are untested.
  • We agreed to test and re-test models to measure our own effectiveness.
  • We stood by, while our students were subjected to 90 hours of testing.
  • We’re embracing the Common Core Standards as a means to magically make our students college and career ready.
  • We dare not exclaim Race to the Top, is really a race to nowhere, because politically we must remain loyal until November.
  • We stand by while charters eat away at public education, and even at times support our own charter schools.
So here we are, standing arm in arm with Governor Cuomo, praising his acumen in negotiating this deal. Forgetting that his tax cap policies have caused thousand of teachers all across the state to lose their jobs. Forgetting that his education commissioner is a pro charter advocate. Forgetting that his flawed teacher evaluation plan is nothing more than an attempt to circumvent tenure. Here we are standing there.
Yeah, another nice mess you got us into!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the great analogy to Laurel and Hardy.

Anonymous said...

Really 2 great pieces proving Weingarten is in bed with the anti-public school forces. She is seeing $$$$ by signing up charters since she thinks it's the wave of the future. She is no better than Rhee. Both are opportunists.

The AFT and Mulgrew hailed the evaluation agreement too--the one that screws teachers. But they can easily screw teachers because they know teachers no longer have backbone.

btw, What's Leo's new role????????????????

Anonymous said...

This is a win much in the way the battle of Stalingrad was a win for Hitler.
Differentiate This bald pimp.