Ed Notes Online: On Wisconsin, NY Testing Con - and Rochester Teachers: 94% No-Confidence in Kleinite Brizard

Monday, February 21, 2011

On Wisconsin, NY Testing Con - and Rochester Teachers: 94% No-Confidence in Kleinite Brizard

UPDATE: Forgot to clue you in to this story in Rochester where former NYC Kleinite and grad from Eli Broad Academy of Ed Deform Jean Claude-Brizard had a 94% no-confidence vote by the teachers:

http://failingschools.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/94-6-no-confidence-and-the-following-storm/

So much going on I am tied into knots just trying to figure out what to put up. I could do 10 posts a day but I'm wearing you out already, so I'll try to combine them.

I'll try to get to it later but make sure to read Jeff Kaufman's excellent take-down of E4E bullshit misleading manifesto at the ICEUFT Blog

“White Paper” on a Roll: How Ed Deformers Distort the Record on Seniority Layoffs

I'll try to do more in depth on Jeff's story - make sure to find his report on his attendance at an E4E meeting - Jeff's school is a hotbed of E4Eers.

On Wisconsin: There's no point in my adding to some of the superb posts out there by other bloggers and commentators. I loved the Ed Show Friday night live from Madison where he called out the right wingers - note how they exempted police and fire but they were turning out anyway to support the teachers. Loads of stuff out there:

Ravitch on Why America's teachers are enraged

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Diane Ravitch: Teachers are rallying against Wisconsin plan to cut their benefits, union rights
She says teachers have been singled out for blame on America's education problems
Ravitch: How can we improve schools while cutting funding and demoralizing teachers?

"Walker then used the deficit he'd created as the justification for assaulting his state's public employees." 12 Things You Need to Know About the Uprising in Wisconsin | AlterNet

Paul Krugman has a great piece in the Times today: Wisconsin Power Play "
"What’s happening in Madison isn’t about the state budget"

RBE at Perdido St. School
Many Pro-Union Demonstrators Outnumber Anti-Union Demonstrators

The wingers brought in Joe the Plumber and Andrew Breitbart to rally the corporatist forces in favor of the Walker plan to bust the unions - but they were outnumbered four-to-one:

And NYC Educator: How Far Is Wisconsin? I left this comment:

In GEM's new film responding to Waiting for Superman a parent says, "First they came for the auto workers." Paul Krugman points out how they went after the private sector unions first.
We have to look at Wisconsin as part of "The Plan" to undermine and destroy teacher unions not only in this nation but around the world. Lois Weiner has been doing workshops on this issue for a long time and has a book out about it, all dovetailing with the work of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. Teachers are the focus because when they are organized they theoretically have the ability to reach into the homes of every parent with children in this nation. As a political force the right wing considers teachers especially dangerous as a force to battle their ideology. Of course they don't take into account the Randi Weingartens of this world - you make an excellent point - the unions have already given in to so many of the demands the right smells blood. Negotiations start right there instead of from a point where we will compromise on how much to give. Any fiscal crisis can be manufactured for political and ideological reasons and I believe we have a similar situation here in NY. Note how Bloomberg is manufacturing the layoff crisis to end LIFO.
It will be interesting to see how the union reacts here when things get stickier - look for the same - "we give" on many issues other than the ones that might weaken their control over the members - as a yearly election or end to dues checkoff would do. I've heard some anti-Unity Caucus people say "good." Sure it might open up the union to other groups - but if they were to replace Unity there would not be much of a union left. How ironic would it be if it ever came to the Wisconsin law here - we would all be forced to stand with Unity to help keep them in power, well, forever.

NY Post on the NY Testing Con
From the NY Post, no less - but it places most blame on former State Ed comm Richard Mills - come on, Meryl Tisch and the other Regents are off the hook? There was some great commentary on the NYCEdNews listserve. I extracted some of it and posted on Norms Notes.

New York's school testing con: Commentary on Sue Adelman NY Post

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

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 Extended

Monday, February 21, 2011

On Wisconsin, NY Testing Con - and Rochester Teachers: 94% No-Confidence in Kleinite Brizard

No comments: