Ed Notes Online: Truly Sleepless in Seattle

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Truly Sleepless in Seattle

July 7, 2010

Diane Ravitch, who received the NEA Friend of Education award, electrified the Representative Assembly Tuesday with an impassioned call for the defense of public education and the teaching profession. There is a video but it didn't run for me. http://www.nea.org/grants/40241.htm

The NEA strong stand on Obama/Duncan and RTTT will put pressure on the AFT this week. They passed some very good resos which I will link to later. Don't forget- Ravitch was at the NEA and won't be at the AFT. Not a rift but there may be some tension there. See NEA press release about Ravitch. Diane Ravitch receives NEA’s Friend of Education Award.

Here is my report from last night.

July 6, 2010

Jeez, this place is beginning to crawl with teachers. "What's going on," asked a pretty hip guy who runs an very interesting and eclectic bookstore on the lower level of the Pike Place Market? "Everyone who's been coming in here seems to be a teacher." I told him about the AFT convention. He went on to tell me how he hated school and most of his teachers were awful. "But you run a book store," I said. "Yeah, funny, my mom always says that it is strange given by history with school." We had a nice chat about the Seattle schools, most of which he seemed to have attended - unwillingly - at one time or another.

I intend to stop by a few times to browse and if you're in town give him the business instead of the big chains. Wait a minute, I am getting my Nora Ephron/Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks films mixed up. The battle of the small bookstore vs big chain didn't take place in Seattle while the sleepless houseboat thingy did. (By the way, if you are a fan of "The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo" read Ephron's wonderful takeoff in last week's New Yorker.)

I took an early morning flight out on Tuesday and we arrived an hour early at 10:30am local time. I saw a bunch of UFT people on the flight (I recognized Maureen Salter and Betty Zohar), along with retired John F. Kennedy teacher Carolyn Eubanks, here with a contingent from Progressive Labor. She experienced the wonderful Anthony Rotunno (A DOE Favored Principal Takes A Hit - Way too Late) at Kennedy so there was joy in her Mudville over his recent travails.

I had a little time to settle in, grab my new video camera and check out the scene - which meant eating my way through the city. I must have eaten 5 times yesterday. Lisa North (GEM/ICE) came in last night and Gloria Brandman is due tonight. George Schmidt and the Chicago crew are due today. Gloria, Lisa and I are staying at the Homewood Suites a short distance from the convention center and it is very impressive - a full kitchen and free breakfast and a dinner reception almost every night - I think I may be able to eat 10 times a day. I hope no one is sitting next to me on the way home on the Monday night red eye.

There will be some activity from the AFT Peace and Justice group which is where Lisa and Gloria will be putting their efforts.

Given the NEA "no confidence" vote in RTTT this past weekend I imagine the Randi rhetoric will fly showing just how tough she will be. I expect lots of people to break out in gales of laughter. Even some Unity people might have to hide their faces. This is going to be pretty funny considering how just about everyone you talk to in Unity trashes Randi as they gush, "Mulgrew is so different. He is a real teacher." Sure. A year ago they would be telling you how smart Randi was. If Jack the Ripper ran the union they would talk about how clean and shiny he keeps his knives.

One retired Unity person was throwing this at a friend who told her about the teacher evaluation based on test score agreement Mulgrew agreed to. "Terrible they would do that," she responded. By "they" she meant BloomKlein. Somehow Unity people have the ability to make their leader disappear from anything bad that they agree too. Or maybe they think BloomKlein are using water boarding.

By the way, we heard Arne Duncan will be in town on Friday afternoon for another event. Would Randi dare to bring him in to address convention? I am betting not as there is so much teacher anger out there his reception would not be pretty.

Here is one place you WON'T find me this week.

3 comments:

The Perimeter Primate said...: I’ve scouted things out in case a few teachers want to pay a visit to Arne Duncan. Duncan’s calendar says he will be at Aviation High School on Friday, July 9, from 2:10 to 3:20 p.m. “to meet with community partners, education stakeholders, as well as students at Aviation High School, for a discussion on innovation in education. Sen. Patty Murray will join him.”

1. AFT convention schedule for the afternoon of July 9th
• Noon Human Rights luncheon
• 2:30 p.m. General session

2. Aviation High School is ONLY 14 miles south of the Convention Center, just past the airport. Its address is 615 South 200th St., Des Moines, WA.

3. Public transportation (Fare is $ 2.00 cash): http://tripplanner.kingcounty.gov/cgi-bin/itin_page.pl
• Walk 0.4 mile SW from WA STATE CONVENTION - TRADE CENTER to 2nd Ave & Pike St
• Depart at 11:26 AM on Route MT 132 (Des Moines). Weekday schedule for Route 132: http://metro.kingcounty.gov/tops/bus/schedules/s132_0_.html
• Arrive at 8th Ave S & S 200th St at 12:34 PM (it's a residential area)
• Walk 0.1 mile W to AVIATION HIGH SCHOOL

4. Aviation High School is a high-scoring, aviation- and aerospace- themed small school that serves ~400 students. Its demographics are:
• AA 6.7%
• Asian/PI 19.4%
• Hispanic 10.3%
• White 61.2%
• FRPL 21.3%
• SpEd 1.3%
• Transitional Bilingual 1.3%

5. Washington is one of the few remaining states with NO charter schools!!! The others are Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Alabama, Kentucky, West Virginia, Vermont, and Maine.

6. U.S. Senator Patty Murray (WA) serves on the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee http://appropriations.senate.gov/sc-labor.cfm
7. Alternatively, you could take a stroll from the convention center to the headquarters for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It’s less than two miles north of the convention center at 1551 Eastlake Avenue East.

If you can’t get away to do any of the above, I still wish you happy networking and a really good time!; Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 2:02:00 PM EDT
ed notes online said...: Thanks for the work Sharon. I will post it on sidebar so people can jump in. Will keep you all posted. Right now working on leaflet for gates appearance.; Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 2:23:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: We here in Seattle would love to host a get-together.

Contact me at dora.taylor@gmail.com.

http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/testimony-regarding-dr-goodloe-johnsons-performance/

Dora; Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 1:08:00 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

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Truly Sleepless in Seattle

3 comments: