Ed Notes Online: Yesterday They Called Me a Union Thug...

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Yesterday They Called Me a Union Thug...

Now they want me to carry an assault rifle.

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Carol Burris: Sign High Stakes Testing Petition

Dear friends and colleagues,

First, thank you for signing onto the petition to end high stakes testing. In about a week, nearly 4000 New Yorkers have signed on. Although four thousand is impressive, it will take many more to get attention. It is getting it out and about that is a challenge, and that is where I need your help. Please send this petition around with a personal message to a friend or relative to sign on.

If the four thousand folks who signed on got just two more people to sign on, the number would jump to 12,000. Sometimes it is as easy as asking a spouse, partner, child or parent to sign on. If you can get it out to your PTA or your child's PTA that is even better. I have never met a parent, especially of a young child who said, "please test my child some more". Yet that is exactly what politicians and so-called 'reformers' are insisting that schools do.

Here is the link

http://roundtheinkwell.com/2012/12/29/petition-to-the-nys-board-of-regents-against-high-stakes-testing/

Thanks for your help! Carol

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

Deb Meier on the impact of ed deform

Ask any true blue/red revolutionary--left or right--and they'll tell you that the trick is to act fast and furiously when you have a chance (there may be a short window before the opposition recoups). That mens moving fast on changes that are hard to undo. Who would of dreamed, even a decade ago, that so many public schools could be closed and so many charters could be fitted into existing public buildings, and that the contracts signed between teachers and management couldl be nullified, in fact if not on paper. The mechanism, Mayoral control backed solidly by the business community, and/or state take-over of municipalities. The Chicago Tribune has just exposed a secret plan to take over another 100 schools--to be announced in March for 2013-14. In NYC, more closings are proposed--I her rumors about how many. Ditto Detroit, Washington D.C. (where 30 more are being closed). Once students and teachers are removed from the scene, and either fired or sent elsewhere, it's irreversible. Smart tactics, but hardly a shining example of democracy.

That it can happen at all is one more sure-fire demonstration that our democracy is in serious trouble. That's the crisis we are living through--that's the cliff we are blindly being led over.

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me.

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

What's Ed Deform/Common Core All About, Alfie - er -Joanne Weiss

NEVER FORGET THAT THE UFT/AFT AND NYCDOE ARE PUSHING THIS:

From Mark Naison:
A Quote to End All Quotes from Arne Duncan's Chief of Staff

If new standards will do nothing to improve learning, why were they pushed so aggressively? The comments of Joanne Weiss, chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, are telling. She wrote in the Harvard Business Review that the Common Core "radically alters the market ... Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on adistrict-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale."
http://dumpduncan.org/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Interesting commentary on Bloomberg Model

"The Bloomberg model has positioned parents as customers, and principals as CEOs, with student outcomes as the product. But the backlash that the mayor has faced is from parents who don't see their schools that way. Test scores aren't always what parents care most about in a school. Many care just as much about having teachers they can connect with, places they and their children feel comfortable and respected, a school's history in the community—things that aren't quantifiable o a standardized exam."

CAPITALBeta

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

Two great posts by Yong Zhao

Why did Waiting for Superman get snubbed and Exit Through the Gift Shop get nommed?

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/race/top-5-oscar-nomination-mysteries-76467

Davis Guggenheim’s doc about poor kids and charter schools got 11 major film award nominations and won four, including the National Board of Review and Sundance Audience Prize. Most pundits thought it a shoo-in. He won an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, and had major help from Bill Gates, Oprah and Obama. Some fear prankster Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop is all a hoax.

Why it happened: Guggenheim’s big backers may have actually irked independent-minded Academy members. Worse, his teacher’s union-bashing film was embraced by conservatives, one of whom said his Oscar snub is “the price a political apostate pays in Hollywood for straying off the liberal plantation.” Education expert Diane Ravitch trashed it as inaccurate. A more dispassionate expert says, “The first response to the movie was that it’s about poor black kids, and it’s from the Gore guy, so it must be liberal and good-hearted. And then Ravitch and others portrayed it as basically right-wing propaganda, which unsettled the liberal members of the Academy. I don’t think the movie is as reactionary as Ravitch portrayed it, but I also don’t think it’s very good.” An Oscar doc voter agrees. “It was a great deal of hype. I felt like I’d seen the story before.” “It also tanked at the box office, relative to what was spent on promoting it,” adds the education expert. “The true unforgivable sin in Hollywood!”

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Must See Video Re: Chicago Treatment of NYC ATR equivalents

During the summer of 2010, Chicago Public Schools terminated over 1300 teachers without regard to qualifications or seniority. In August 2010, Congress passed the Education Jobs Act Funds to restore teaching positions across the nation. Chicago Public Schools received $104 million for that purpose however according to CPS accounts, $30 million remains unspent while over 400 illegally fired teachers remained without jobs. This Chicago Teachers Union press conference was held on Wednesday, October 20, 2010.This program was recorded by Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwVuhjdIpnI

Picked up from Mike Klonsky blog.
http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/

Will Firing 5-10% of Teachers Make Us Finland?

The 5-10% Solution, was written by Matthew di Carlo, and originally published on the Shanker Blog, and then reposted on Valerie Strass' The Answer Sheet.

In the world of education policy, the following assertion has become ubiquitous: If we just fire the bottom 5-10 percent of teachers, our test scores will be at the level of the highest-performing nations, such as Finland. Michelle Rhee likes to make this claim. So does Bill Gates.

The source and sole support for this claim is a calculation by economist Eric Hanushek, which he sketches out roughly in a chapter of the edited volume Creating a New Teaching Profession (published by the Urban Institute). The chapter is called “Teacher Deselection” (“deselection” is a polite way of saying “firing”)

To read the rest, please visit the Shanker Blog or The Answer Sheet.

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Retinking Schools on CORE Victory in Chicago

A Cauldron of Opposition in Duncan’s Hometown • Rank-and-File Teachers Score Huge Victory

Fall 2010

Illustration: Randall Enos

An Interview with Karen Lewis and Jackson Potter

In a stunning victory, a group of rank-and-file teachers won election to leadership of the powerful Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) this past June. Karen Lewis, a high school chemistry teacher, defeated the two-time incumbent president, winning 60 percent of the vote. Lewis led a slate of candidates from the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE), all of whom were swept into office.

For the past two years, CORE has led a growing grassroots movement against the school closings, charter schools, and “turnarounds” that are Arne Duncan’s Chicago legacy. They now face the daunting task of leading the CTU, which represents more than 30,000 educators—including teachers, clerks, substitutes,and teaching assistants—serving more than 400,000 students.

Rethinking Schools editors Bob Peterson and Jody Sokolower interviewed Karen Lewis and Jackson Potter, who is a co-founder of CORE, high school social studies teacher, and newly elected trustee of CTU.

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/25_01/25_01_petersonsokolower.shtml

Norm on the radio at "The Mind of a Bronx Teacher"

I was asked to cover for a guest too chicken to appear by Bronx Teacher on his penetrating weekly internet radio show (every Tuesday night at 9pm).

"The union has consistently been giving back since 1968."

He asked some great questions and I had a chance to get into issues in terms of historical context of the UFT - the '68 strike, the '75 massive cuts to schools and other issues to help prove my point that Randi Weingarten DID NOT CHANGE DIRECTION but continued and amplified the policies set in motion by Al Shanker.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bronx-teacher/2010/07/28/the-mind-of-a-bronx-teacher

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Sharon Higgins on New Orleans Charters

The conversion of New Orleans' schools to charters is up to about 70% now. Community members are watching every single last one of their historical neighborhood schools get wiped away and, at the same time, are becoming increasingly disenchanted with charters. http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2010/03/new_orleans_parents_complain_t.html:

When Vallas stated at Monday's meeting that charters are doing "a heck of a job" educating public school students, the mostly African-American audience responded with jeers. Many speakers called for the return of neighborhood schools and expressed fears that many charters accept only students with high test scores.

Randi Tries to Gain Cover Over Rhee Praise

Randi says:

Vouchers, charter schools, mayoral control, the power to "abolish" individual teaching positions and chancellor-controlled teacher evaluations - all of these have been part of the school landscape in Washington for years. Even the latest national fad, dismissing the value of teachers' experience, is nothing new to Washington."

Gee Randi, glad to see we in NYC haven't had any of these things (except for vouchers -which by the way I see as having come here through the charter schools).

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/06/17/2010-06-17_dc_deal_has_few_lessons_for_ny_union_head_says_washington_contract_shouldnt_be_a.html#ixzz0r6thuJ4a

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

I am a current teacher at a Believe school

Dear Ms. Ohanian,

Thank you for posting the story "Students at $100 a Head?" from the New York Times blog. I saw your note that the CEO of the school wrote threatening emails after you posted the story.

I am a current teacher at a Believe school, and a commenter on Ms. Medina's blog. I implore you to publish Melendez's comments, or to comment on Ms. Medina's blog. It may seem small or irrelevant to spend more time thinking about this single charter school, but I assure you that it matters to me, my fellow teachers, and most of all, to our students, that Melendez's misdeeds do not continue to go unnoticed.

Sincerely,

Louise (not my real name)

See all comments posted at the CityRoom blog

Diane Ravitch Comment on the New Teacher Evaluation System...

James,

You are right. This approach will promote narrowing of the curriculum, teaching to the test, cheating and gaming the system. We should be removing high stakes for students and teachers, not making them higher.

Diane Ravitch

In response to this point by James Calantjis:

This [the UFT explanation/propaganda] does not provide much of an explanation. Student test scores will be part of the process as will observations.There has always been a process to help weaker teachers that includes the UFT's Peer Intervention Program. This sounds like double talk to justify the decision.

A Teacher at a Closing School Comments

Here are the main problems.

1. Inexperienced/ Inept leadership at principal level

2. Failure to accept that all students do not want/ are unable to be college graduates

3. Failure to realize that without qualified electricians, plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, etc we are totally screwed.

4. Failure to realize that students learn best with students of similar abilities and interests.

5. Failure to understand that social skills are a better predictor of success and happiness than academic aptitude.

6. Failure to realize that as students grow their abilities and interests change and that continual reevaluation of their potential is both appropriate and necessary.

7. The above is true for teachers and administrators as well.

8. Everything that worked 40 years ago may not work today but some of it probably will.

If you cannot read you cannot lead. If you cannot lead no one will follow. If no one follows you are alone.

Don't think the DOE has given up for an instant.

Charter Schools and Tracking

Lisa has left a new comment on your post "What's wrong with charter schools?":

Thanks for getting this posting some of the air it deserves, Norm.
I think ceolaf is right about a great number of things, and particularly appreciate his systemic, meta-view of these hot button issues.

I want to substantiate a few of the points raised in this post:

1. "Charterness" is not a condition for school innovation.

Just as the reverse is not true(a a charter school is by definition innovative), public schools that are NOT charters can be innovative.
The original small schools movement of the late 80's and early 90's (now coopted and transformed by Gates/DoE)spawned a number of pedagogically innovative schools.
In District One, educators, administrators and community members started a handful of still popular and sucessful small schools within schools to pull back the fleeing local residents into public schools.
Those Dewey-based, child-centered schools offered curriculae based on whole language, constructivist math, mixed age groupings, integrated curriuculum projects and portfolio evaluation

2. Tracking on a large scale does indeed exist.
Gifted and Talented and CTT programs are used as sorting hats that are increasing racial isolation in many schools and communities.
I would like to be able to substantiate this trend in the latest round of admissions, but as usual, have no access to that data from DoE yet (believe me I try)!

3. Special Ed service availability is, as ceolaf suspects, one more way to segregate and track:
The two (soon to be 3) charter schools serving the District One community offer NO CTT or self contained classes.
The "other public" district schools operate with plenty of both (w/ the exception of a few elite schools- a citywide K-12th G and T , a "dual language" Manadarin pre-k through 8th grade program and an elite selective HS), yet the charters offer no more than SETTS services to students.
Despite the rhetoric of least restrictive environments and innovative methods for servicing students with special needs that you may hear from the OCS patricians, parents with kids with IEPs that require more services or more restrictive environments know that they need not apply to these schools.

I'd be happy to share more information on or off line on any of this.

Related:
NYC Educator:
Charter School Deems Kid Too Dangerous to Be Around Students or Faculty, Sends Him to Public School

Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Extended

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Yesterday They Called Me a Union Thug...

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