Showing posts with label press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label press. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Pride and Prejudice: Seward Darby on ATRs in the New Republic


The New Republic's Seward Darby clearly an ed deformer supporter, attended the Mar 28 Grassroots Education Movement conference on closing schools, charter schools and ATRs. She signed in but did not identify herself as a reporter. Her negative report (School's Out Forever by Seward Darby in The New Republic) is dripping with so much bias and venom, don't get wet reading it. Teachers grumble. They furrow their brow. They shout. The dress of a few people are described for negative effect.

Participants at the March meeting--sponsored by a self-described "dissenting caucus" of the UFT--are leading a campaign to get the city to repeal its mutual-consent policy, including the ATR. And they echoed Weingarten's grievance (though they also called her a "failed labor leader" for agreeing to scrap forced placement in the first place)."

Darby made no attempt to explore the true roots of dissent, that the organizers of the conference represent some of the most progressive teachers in NYC, and that the issues of closing schools and high stakes tests are part of the ATR equation.

"Meanwhile, as states look for ways to qualify for federal stimulus money by committing to increasing teacher effectiveness,
New York stands as one model of what not to do."

I've collected a series of Darbyisms from this "journalist" less than two years out of college, clearly an expert in urban education. Note how every teacher is presented with a negative description. And all seem to be vets, ignoring the fact that the conference attracted a mixed bag of newer and older teachers.

Darby is a shill. Numerous quotes from TNTP's Tim Daly but never mention his contracts with the city and what he has to gain by attacking ATRs. Using quotes from Daly and TNTP on ATRs, which has large contracts in NYC to train new teachers, is like using Dick Cheney as a resource on weapons of mass destruction.

"I'm happy now," one such teacher told TNTP researchers. "I don't have to prep, I don't have to grade tests, I don't have my own class. I don't really have to do anything."

Take one quote and apply it to all 1400? I guess Darby didn't have the time to read the comments from ATRs who sent in numerous resumes but didn't get one call. Daly forgot to talk to them too. She had the opportunity to talk directly to many ATRs in the room but chose to use this old quote from TNTP.

"Perhaps worst of all, the ATR is part of what was supposed to be an effort to free New York from the stranglehold its powerful teachers' union" [Stanglehold? Has Darby been awake at all?]

The battle over teacher hiring is why, on a Saturday afternoon in late March,
a group of angry veteran teachers gathered in a chilly Manhattan classroom. They were there to protest the ATR. Sitting at desks scattered haphazardly [look at these people,can't even straighten the desks.] through the room, the educators shouted complaints as one woman scribbled notes on sheets of paper taped to the blackboard. They decried New York's mayor, his chancellor of education, and school principals, and they lamented this cabal's primary goal: to replace experienced educators with younger recruits. "A lot of principals don't want teachers who've been around for a while because when they say jump, we'll say, 'Why?'" one woman cried, her brow furrowing with anger. "A twenty-two-year-old would say, 'How high?'

"It's like in the nineteenth century, when people were thrown off farms and had to live in crummy parts of cities,"
grumbled one teacher, slumped at his desk in snakeskin cowboy boots and a shirt emblazoned with the UFT logo.

Their
sense of entitlement dates back to 1961, when the newly formed UFT challenged the weak job security and low pay of the teaching profession.

But the plan is
deeply flawed because, in 2005, UFT refused to sacrifice its commitment to lifelong job security. It won the ATR, which means that, while displaced teachers have to compete for jobs, there is no consequence if they do not find them. They would simply get paid to wait in the ATR."

TNTP found no hiring bias against ATR teachers.[Do they have a dog in the race?]

Wearing black boots, army pants, and a skin-tight shirt that said "undefeated," a reserve teacher standing by a snack table declared himself a "political prisoner."

Another
retired teacher shouted that the city's attacks on seniority and job guarantees "will make the AIG crooks look like gold." [THAT's ME and I don't shout. I just speak loudly. Of course she took this out of context.]

Today, teachers lingering for months, even years, in the reserve are more likely than the rest of the city's educators to have "unsatisfactory" performance ratings, [DEBUNKED BY EDUWONKETTE] and many haven't applied for new jobs online, [HOW ABOUT DATA? "MANY" MEANS EXACTLY HOW MANY?] where the city maintains an employment database, or attended a job fair.


Chicago, one of the only other big U.S. school systems to adopt mutual consent, allows teachers to remain in reserve for ten months,
after which they are removed from the public payroll.

because of growing opposition and outrage from the UFT and
teachers clinging to the past.

Lots of code words here. Note the negative descriptions, ignoring the people who spoke so eloquently at the conference. Darby was in the same room I was but was wearing narrow blinkers

I especially like this one:
Another woman holding an issue of the International Socialist Review silently shook her head.

Wow, and red-baiting too. Way to go Seward.

She emailed me to say she would call to interview me. The call never came. But why hear all sides of the issue when you are out to do a hatchet job in the first place?

Can you spell s-h-o-d-d-y j-o-u-r-n-a-l-i-s-m?

Friday, October 31, 2008

What's in YOUR Wallet? Ask the Tweedies


One minute it was there. And the next it was gone. Meredith Kolodner's article in the Daily News about the wealth of top Tweed officials suddenly disappeared from the web site soon after it was posted when Tweed complained to the higher ups at the newspapers. The lost story was reported by Elizabeth Green at Gotham Schools.

My understanding is that the story was slated to run today both in the newspaper and online, but then got scrapped late last night. This appears to have happened because of an outside intervention, since the story had already been uploaded to the paper’s Web site, meaning it had gone all the way through the editing process. Word of the decision to kill the story — not postpone or delay or just put on the Web, but kill — came to both print and Web designers, who dutifully destroyed it, except for one thing: the Web headline, which was still visible this morning.

Leonie Haimson and the gang at the NYC Public School Parent blog used mouth to mouth resusication to bring the story back to life.

After a slew of negative revelations about the way Tweed botched the Gifted and talented admissions process so that it became much less diverse, schools have remained hugely overcrowded, they are paying through the nose for personal couriers and consultants, and the $80 million supercomputer ARIS that is a massive failure and waste of money, one wonders why the extreme sensitivity on this particular issue?

More from Leonie and the revived story at the NYCPSP blog.

Ed Note: When Meredith Kolodner was at The Chief her reporting on NYC education and other matters was always outstanding. And we hope the gig at the Daily News which seems so much under the Bloomberg heel will allow her the freedom to continue that work. Elizabeth Green is continuing her great work from the NY Sun at Gotham. While teachers generally mistrust members of the press, these 2 have always been reliable in getting a teacher point of view out there.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Trusting Elizabeth, Not the NY Times

Recently, a potentially hot news story was broached to some people in ICE. The first reporter they asked for was the NY Sun's Elizabeth Green. Told she was on vacation, the sources said they would wait for her return. They specifically said the NY Times would be the last place they would go because they are not to be trusted.

The view out there is that the Times is a shill for BloomKlein. Not only BloomKlein, but the UFT too. In other words, the Times ignores the views of the anti-BloomKlein forces and the alternate views within the union.

Witness the narrow op-eds and magazine section that presented the voice of the mayor without a hint of alternatives.

Green, working for a paper that is so clearly to the right of the so-called "liberal" Times, has been allowed much free reign to report on a number of issues that the Times would never allow its reporters to touch. After all, the policies of BloomKlein have to be protected.

Note: this is not to be viewed as a condemnation of the Times Ed reporters. The lack of coverage or the narrowness of the reporting must be blamed on the breakdown of the wall between editorial and reporting at the Times. Kudos to the NY Sun for keeping that wall intact.

See our follow up guest piece critiquing the Rotherham op-ed.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Klein Meets the Press

I covered Joel Klein's press briefing for The Wave yesterday.

The press briefing was all about the Principal Satisfaction survey and how much principals love what BloomKlein are doing so questions were limited to that.

I did find one area where 55% said they were dissatisfied with the amount of technology in their schools - as a tech person I've heard from my former colleagues that since Klein took over the state of computers has been a disaster in many schools and I tied the question to how can he expect teachers to check results of tests online during a limited school day when there's is such poor computer access and doesn't this mean they have to do it at home?

He responded that my info was based on urban legends. My next question would have been "Will you do a similar survey on teacher satisfaction." But wouldn't call on me again.

Klein claimed the Principal surveys were anon but one reporter told me they must be able to trace them - so even some of them are skeptical. In addition, every contact I have who talk to principals and even those above them - say they are very dissatisfied with the BloomKlein changes - other than those corporate types they've brought in.

I got an email from someone who reads my Wave columns and urged me to keep up the good work. Turns out that person actually works in some high position. There's unhappiness in the belly of the beast.

On a social note, our old friend Redhog was at the press briefing for the NY Teacher.