Ed Notes Online: Educators 4 Excellence: Dying Embers

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Educators 4 Excellence: Dying Embers

Losing Traction, Pleas for People to Come to Free Screening Tonight. Are Sydney and Evan about to abandon the NYC ship? Will Bill Gates and Joe Williams ask for their money back?

Ed Notes and our pal at South Bronx School (who has been relentless in his assault) have been pointing to the lack of traction E4E has been getting despite ed deform funding, enormous publicity and backing from the Department of Education. We pointed to the poor turnout at their Sept. 19 event when Walcott brought along his top deputies (Shael, Weiner and more) to try to pump some life into E4E. That Sept. 23 post - E4E: 3000 Members, 2900 Don't Show - Walcott And C... was one of the most popular.

But the ed deform attempts to undermine teacher unions from within has not been going well - see Mike Klonsky on Rhambo's failure in Chicago. (Thankfully, the CTU didn't take Zorn's advice).

We surmised that E4E's push to eliminate LIFO (last in first out) and make tenure very tough to get rebounded on them when many of their supporters were denied tenure or had their tenure extended while seeing the next crop of teachers coming into their schools to replace older teachers - you know, like the 26 year-olds. Seeing so many unfair denial of tenure for political instead of educational reasons - principals who want to demonstrate how tough they are - turned many E4E sympathizers on to the benefits of LIFO.

In addition, their initial crop of supporters, mainly from Teach for America, began to fulfill their 2-year term and are leaving. So they have to continually renew their organizing. Believe me, as someone trying to organize teachers for 40 years, we don't waste time worrying about the people likely to leave - focusing instead on career teachers, the very crew groups like E4E and TFA shun with their "abandon the children you claim you care so much about so you can go make and influence educational policy."

Of course the fact they can hire 3 or 4 organizers gives them a leg up - imagine if GEM could do that - we could actually break the UFT Administration (our new term for the people running the union) blackout of our movie.

E4E tried to pack the Education Nation forum - I even received an email a teacher in Kansas City making that point - every one of them made sure to mention E4E when they spoke - asking where was GEM? I responded, GEM are real teachers and have better things to do than waste a Sunday promoting themselves - though I made sure to mention GEM when I asked a question to challenge Michelle Rhee on her big DC cheating scandal at Monday's panel.

In their latest update, E4E is still offering free tickets to tonight's screening of American Teacher:

E4E is hosting a free screening of "American Teacher", a new documentary, TOMORROW, Thursday, October 6 at 7:00 PM. Matt Damon narrates the film, which is based on a book about teacher salaries by novelist Dave Eggers. After the screening, the director will join us for a discussion.

Where: AMC Empire 25, 243 W. 42nd Street near 8th Avenue

When: Thursday, October 6 at 7:00 PM

RSVP: Join us for a free screening of American Teacher!

How funny. GEM is holding a free screening of "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" on Oct. 14 and our guest speaker is the star of American Teacher, Jamie Fidler, a Real Reformer who has taught for almost a decade in elementary school in Brooklyn.

If you sign up, E4E insists not only on your signing the loyalty oath, but extracting every bit of info they can get out of you. Think the violation of privacy they demand is a put-off?

SBS has an inside source at E4E and his latest is revealing, claiming his source says S&E are thinking of relocating to Los Angeles:

According to our source deep inside E4E both Little Evan and Princess Sydney are disappointed not only with the lack of a groundswell supporting them and E4E, but the lack of headway they have made. Think about it, all the major initiatives they have proposed have all hit the ground with a tremendous thud. Nice way to spend all of Bill Gates' hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Read it all: Educators4Excellence 90210

SHOW ED DEFORMERS YOU SUPPORT A REAL REFORM MOVIE:

OCT. 14 IS YOUR CHANCE. WE DON'T ASK FOR LOYALTY OATHS OR FOR YOU TO REVEAL EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION INCLUDING YOUR UNDERWEAR SIZE TO GET FREE ENTRY

Meet Jamie Fidler and other RRs.

And if you'd like a copy of this to post in your school, email me at normsco@gmail.com

==================

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 the right for important 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

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Educators 4 Excellence: Dying Embers

No comments: