Ed Notes Online: Rubber Room News: David Pakter's 3020a Hearing (Number 2)

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Rubber Room News: David Pakter's 3020a Hearing (Number 2)

Make sure to read David Pakter's essay over at Norm's Notes on his upcoming 3020a hearing - this is the hearing that can lead to a tenured teacher's firing. The kind of hearing being attacked by anti-tenure people who want to be able to fire people for things like not brushing their teeth.

3020-a trials always begin with a pre trial conference between the opposing lawyers

and the Hearing Officer where technical matters are argued over such as the Demands for Discovery. Both sides state reasons for what they will and will not surrender into evidence etc. Lots of technical arguing over the specifics of the charges.

One of the charges is he brought in a large plant to decorate outside the auditorium without permission. Was it a Venus flytrap that ate kids? Or named Audrey?

David said in an email:

...the hearing officer was fairly amazed the DOE would pull something so insane as to make it a charge that the NEW YORK TEACHER ran a story on my case which the DOE claims embarrassed them if you can believe such insanity.

The story is at http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/top/axed/

In any case because the Hearing officer realized this case contains major Constitutional issues involving the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment, he said this case could last a very long time involving countless witnesses and therefore he does not want to even start the actual calling of sworn witnesses without holding several more private Pre-Hearing Conferences.

I believe it is the first 3020-a in the history of New York in which the DOE had the chutzpah and the unbounded Hubris to think they could defecate on a teacher's Constitutional Rights so openly and brazenly. It really is an amazing situation.The other charges are equally ludicrous of course.

David has asked for an open 3020a, which all people have a right to do, and we'll be posting the dates in case anyone wants to see the show. I hope to make a few of them myself and will report back.

More rubber room news:
Sorry, I can't say without getting some people in trouble. But I hear at least one bizarre story a week. Like the one about a teacher recognized as being excellent who is in the rubber room for having an altercation with a child - her own. Can a parent complain about the actions of a teacher when she herself is the teacher?

or - a child charges an extremely competent teacher (the entire staff has been horrified that this could happen to this long-time senior teacher with a great rep) with saying "you're an idiot" when the teacher really said "you didn't get it." So far, 4 months in the rubber room, the entire class that the teacher taught in total chaos as subs come and go. Why did the principal do it when it would have been so easy to believe the teacher's version? Senior teacher with a higher salary? Or just Another Leadership Academy Loon? (A-LAL?)

Oh, and has anyone seen that UFT Rubber Room SWAT (right) team around lately? If you spot them let us know.

2 comments:

Chaz said...: Norm:

It is just incredible that teachers first amendment rights are being challenged by the DOE. I can't believe the arbitrator didn't dismiss the charge.

By the way I know a senior teacher who was removed by his principal because he told a parent that her child was a liar. So do I believe it. You net I do.; Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 7:25:00 PM EDT
ed notes online said...: I have lots of stories but can't print them because some teachers are negotiating settlements to get out of the RR - call this extortion by Tweed.

On David's lawyer - I asked him - I know he used Julia Cohen at some point.

And by the way, David is not fighting this for monetary but for moral reasons. Check out his watch companies at David Pakter watches.; Sunday, May 18, 2008 at 12:09:00 AM EDT

"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 Extended

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Rubber Room News: David Pakter's 3020a Hearing (Number 2)

2 comments: