Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Randi/AFT/Mulgrew/UFT/E4E Join Deformers in Supporting ESEA (ECAA -Escalating Charter Assistance Act)

Weingarten works tirelessly to advance the agendas of billionaire pseudo philanthropists at the expense of union members who pay her salary. The teachers of my acquaintance have no use for standardized testing and the unending test preparation it engenders. They do not require national comparisons of student achievement. Every week contradictory mandates are handed down to the lowly teaching serfs.... Abigail Shure, Newark Teacher

Schools Matter
ECAA "would set the country back more than a half century" -

The requirement that a state “annually measure the achievement of not less than 95 percent of all students… who are enrolled in public schools” (page 88) on the annual assessments is still in place. The federal government is trying to force the testing without taking responsibility for forcing the testing. Now, there is the creative option for parents (or districts) to un-enroll their children during testing and re-enroll once testing is over.
With the continued testing mandate in this ESSA, the federal government should anticipate an opt-out showdown... Mercedes Schneider

More from Jim Horn at Schools Matter:

Say NO to ECAA (Escalating Charter Assistance Act)

Now that NPE, Fairtest, NEA, and AFT have bought the ESEA bag of radioactive rocks with the liar's promise of gold inside, it is best for them to pretend this deadly gift is going to make us all well.
Don't be fooled. Billions are guaranteed for segregated charter privatization to expand exponentially (see pp. 518-575), with charter authorization taken out of the hands of LEAs.
Call Congress and remind them that this bill will unleash an era of resistance and civil disobedience they have never seen.

Help NPE Action STOP Damaging New Provisions in ESEA Reauthorization Bill

Now let's hear from the ed deform peanut gallery

Educators4Excellence ‏@Ed4Excellence 12h12 hours ago

We support the Every Student Succeeds Act, which reflects many teacher priorities: http://www.educators4excellence.org/news/2015-12-educators-4-excellence-supports-passage-of-the-every-student-succeeds-act … #ESEA

UFT ‏@UFT 7h7 hours ago

Support real change in education. Tell Congress to pass the Every Student Succeeds Act - https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-to-support-the-every-student-succeeds-act-of-2015 …

Michael Mulgrew:

Congress is now set to vote on a new education bill that will get the federal government out of the business of teacher evaluations and offers real relief from the testing fixation that has increasingly narrowed the curriculum and done little to close the achievement gap.
Please ask your House representative to vote "YES" to support the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015.

So which side is Mulgrew/Randi/AFT/UFT on? Naturally she lines up with the ed deform slugs of E4E.

Funny, but NPE keeps asking her to play a role at their yearly conference. Isn't it time to dis-invite Randi?

Here is a message from our Ed Notes' Newark stringer:

AFT President Randi Weingarten cordially invites her union members to contact their representatives and senators to voice their support of ESEA. I regret to inform Her Majesty that she will not have the honor of my presence at the festivities. In the spirit of full disclosure; I am not a general. I am not an attorney. I am not a labor organizer. I am a teacher member of the NTU/AFT and I am not an advocate of the reauthorization of ESEA. Whereas, Weingarten claims that turning over authority to states is a "sea change in education policy," I fail to see the advantage of the strategy of fighting a fifty front war (fifty one with the inclusion of Puerto Rico) when we have failed to energize our troops to combat education reform on a federal level.

The two states I observe most closely are New Jersey and New York. There is no evidence of any encouraging news for advocates of public education emanating from either Trenton, or Albany. Governor Christie has succeeded in gutting the one hundred year old tenure law aided and abetted by Democrat State Senator Ruiz. My own position has been jeopardized by this development as I labor under a CAP. Governor Cuomo is battling the public school monopoly with the assistance of Democrat and Republican state legislators alike.

Weingarten works tirelessly to advance the agendas of billionaire pseudo philanthropists at the expense of union members who pay her salary. The teachers of my acquaintance have no use for standardized testing and the unending test preparation it engenders. They do not require national comparisons of student achievement. Every week contradictory mandates are handed down to the lowly teaching serfs.

In the local arena, Weingarten has implemented every possible method to screw Newark public school teachers. Hurricane Katrina has hit Newark full force as charter schools spring up in a vacant parking lot and a Teacher Village. Innovations of merit pay and frozen steps arrive with Weingarten's blessing.

An early endorsement of corporatist Hillary Clinton for president is Weingarten's most glaring misstep thus far. I, for one, wish to file for a divorce from Weingarten and her misguided policies. If Weingarten is for it, I am against it. Contact your Congressmen and Congresswomen to voice your opposition to ESEA. It is too early to sing Kumbaya.

Abigail Shure

Mercedes Schneider: Here is the Proposed Federal Law

By dianeravitch

December 1, 2015

Mercedes Schneider here offers the latest version of the new federal law that will replace No Child Left Behind. Prepare yourself. It is over 1,000 pages. Look for the titles that interest you. Any law that is so long has all sorts of political compromises tucked into it, and all sorts of favors to lobbyists and special interests. It is a Christmas tree, just in time for Christmas.

In this post, Mercedes analyzes the latest draft, the one that came out of the House-Senate conference committee and will likely be made law.

No comments:

"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

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 at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

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/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

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

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

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

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

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."

Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Extended

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Randi/AFT/Mulgrew/UFT/E4E Join Deformers in Supporting ESEA (ECAA -Escalating Charter Assistance Act)

Help NPE Action STOP Damaging New Provisions in ESEA Reauthorization Bill

Mercedes Schneider: Here is the Proposed Federal Law

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