A Principal Asks a Question About E4E on CTS Listserve - and Gets Answers

Has anyone worked with E4E (Educators for Excellence)? They seem to be influential at the policy level. .. a NYC Principal

The positions of E4E and the Unity/UFT leadership are very much in alignment. We've tracked E4E since its beginnings. Backed by Bill Gates and the deformers and also very heavily connected to TFA, it was founded by TFA teachers who taught for 3 years before starting a heavily funded faux teacher group with outposts in NYC, LA and Minnesota and possibly Chicago - basically pushing the agenda of deform but in more subtle ways -- their connections to the deformers is what has given them access to policy - they have full-time employees trying to reach into the schools and undermine the union.... Norm

Yeah Norm I got that vibe from them as well. Anyone else have thoughts?..... NYC Principal

Here is E4E's stance on high stakes testing. You see they go right along with the deformers....
http://www.educators4excellence.org/NYtesting

Pat

A former neighbor became a spokesperson for E4E. He's young, grew up being homeless, and was huge on attempting to prove that poverty and life conditions are not factors in one's education- that a really good teacher could overcome all of that. Well, two years into his first years of teaching at a charter school in my Bed Stuy hood, he started asking questions about what happens at my school. We never got a chance to really talk before he left, but he left teaching. Such a shame...

 

In a nut shell, they're mostly straight out of college, recruited through TFA, and and I know that with the TFA program dwindling, they attempt to present in schools, which is illegal. 

One former E4E person told me that, at first, they were encouraged to do research, but their program director would provide the research (pre-selected) for them to read... When they wanted to find their own studies, it was not included in their discussions. Gates funded studies dominated the discussions.

I haven't worked with E4E but have worked against them particularly when they partnered with Bloomberg's effort to overturn last in first out.  They are an ed deformer 'macmovement' "influential" in policy making to the extent that they can buy favors  and fool teachers into believing that they don't need a union. Even with the misleadership of the UFT weighing on our backs, I don't think many teachers have drank the kool aide that E4E serves up.... Sean

Recently the UFT, in its spirit of keeping ties to ed deformers,  had looked to collaborate and partner up with E4E -- giving them legitimacy -- they look to get a foot in the door of some schools and are now urging their people to run for chapter leader and delegate positions.

I wonder if Bill Gates is paying for this collaboration. In essence, the positions of E4E and the Unity/UFT leadership are very much in alignment.

Former E4Eers have told us about their culture of control where people are manipulated. They offered expensive gifts at raffles at the door.

They have a security system where they check on people to make sure their meetings are not infiltrated. I used to go and stand outside and give out lit -- now they seem to hide their meetings and keep them limited.... Norm

Ed Notes in Bid Against Bill Gates for Educators 4 Excellence's Sydney Morris

Last update: Friday, April 15, 12:30PM

I had a lovely chat with Sydney Morris the other night at the post TFA sponsored gathering in a bar. I was duly impressed. I've become a believer in what Sydney has to say. She is all about putting children first and ahead of those nasty adults.

And she is for merit pay. She was obviously a top-notch teacher in her three years in the system before leaving with her partner Evan Stone to organize Educators 4 Excellence (she is supposedly working part-time F-status), where she gets to pontificate on the most important issue facing education and educators today: changing seniority rules.

One million school children and their parents just dream of the day when Sydney and her merry crew of hired staff at E4E win this victory so the sun can shine again and all women will be strong – Sydney clearly wears the pants in E4E – all the men will be good looking and all the children will have the achievement gap closed and be above average.

Sydney was a fabulous teacher totally dedicated to her children but also a firm believe in merit pay. I asked her how much harder she would have worked and how much more she would have closed the achievement gap had she been paid say, $10,000 more? $20,000? $50,000? Wow! Imagine, how the scores would rise exponentially as the piles of cash grew. And since E4E never even mentions class size, we could could pay her that extra money by firing the worst teacher in her school – most likely a senior teacher making a hundred grand despite spending the entire day reading a newspaper or being absent all the time. Just give her all those kids that were being denied an excellent teacher.

Sixty in a class? No problem. Sydney can handle it. As a matter of fact, when I asked why E4E never mentions class size, Sydney did admit class size can make a difference – if we could lower it to 15. "I taught 34 children", she said. "Since we might only be able to lower class sizes at best to 28 the extra 6 children wouldn't make that much of a difference." Now there's a real teacher for you. Sees no difference between 34 and 28 children in a class. I told you the woman was strong.

Well, Sydney wasn't giving me an answer to the contradiction between favoring merit pay and how her performance would have been affected by being offered merit pay.

She switched tactics - said it was all about incentives. Like luring someone from going to work for Goldman-Saks into teaching high school math instead. What a great idea. I hear many people at Goldman are already lining up to teach high school math in the Bronx. And imagine the math scores the GS guys who pulled those credit default swaps will bring in for an extra 10 Grand!

So, I tried another tactic: Getting into a bidding war with Bill Gates for Sydney's services.

"Sydney, how much do I have to pay you to lure you back into to teaching those poor kids you abandoned?"

I'm still waiting for her answer but she smiled at that, so there is hope.

Now you all know that even though I am a Tier 1 retiree, I may not be able to compete with Bill, Eli, DFER and who knows who else funnels money to E4E (check out their fancy new offices at 333 W. 39th Street). But I don't want to leave those poor kids abandoned by a great teacher like Sydney Morris.

So I am pleading for your help. Join the Ed Notes in a gala fundraiser at a time and location to be announced in the interests of children first:

SSBT: Send Sydney Back to Teaching


AfterBurn
Be sure to read my previous blog posts on the TFA/LIFO event  over the past few days.