Ed Notes Online: John Dewey HS Fights Back Tomorrow as Other Schools Join in the Battle With Fight Back Friday Jan 27

Thursday, January 19, 2012

John Dewey HS Fights Back Tomorrow as Other Schools Join in the Battle With Fight Back Friday Jan 27

NOTE: GEM film will also be shown tonight by Occupy Brooklyn at 7PM at The Commons 387 Atlantic Ave and is also being shown Saturday at noon in downtown Manhattan and Sunday at 2 and 4PM in Williamsburg. Check ed notes and the film website for details.

While the UFT sells a "What me worry attitude" to the members, the teachers as some SIG schools, joined by supporters led by activists within the UFT but not associated with the leadership, have begun to take the battle beyond where the UFT is willing to go.

Teachers at John Dewey HS are taking the lead with today's viewing of the inspiring GEM film response to Waiting for Superman that is being ignored by the UFT, followed by Fight Back Friday rallies both AM and PM tomorrow. A wider FNF is planned for next Friday, Jan. 27 where all schools can join --- please consider having one at your school as a show of solidarity (don't be surprised to see the UFT/DOE settle things and the money be restored --- it may take 'till next year for the full results of the settlement to hit the school we may see militancy die back for a while.)

Here is the press release and fliers:

PRESS RELEASE

Date: Friday, January 20, 2012

Contact:

Michael Solo, Teacher at John Dewey High School : 917-750-7510

Martha Blitzer, Teacher at John Dewey High School : 718-501-2359.

Fight Back Friday: John Dewey High School Fights Back Against Bloomberg Attack

With a cynical misrepresentation of the truth, Mayor Bloomberg is holding 33 Persistently Lowest Achieving (PLA) schools hostage to his demands. The NYCDOE walked out on negotiations with the UFT to finalize an evaluation system for teachers. Agreement on an evaluation process would have allowed School Improvement Grant (SIG) funds to continue being available for the (PLA) schools. Funding for the schools has been frozen because of the impasse in negotiations. The NYCDOE refuses to return to the negotiating table and has threatened the 33 (PLA) schools with closure through a process called “turnaround”.

Funding is being used to drive a wedge between the UFT and the public, but Bloomberg’s real motivation is the implementation of an evaluation process that deprives teachers of due process protections.

The John Dewey High School community has endured years of neglect and threats from the NYCDOE. We have worked hard to move our school forward and we are making great strides in overcoming the tremendous obstacles that were put in our path by the NYCDOE. Why is Mayor Bloomberg threatening our school community?

Bullies depend on their victims to be unprepared to defend themselves. The entire John Dewey High School community has decided to fight back. We are tired of being used as pawns in Mayor Bloomberg’s bid to cripple our school and public education. We are continuing our push back, which began last year, with a new round of Fight Back Friday protests.

Our push back actions will take place on Friday, January 20th. There will be a morning protest, in front of our school building, at 7:15am and an afternoon protest at 2:45pm.

fightbackfridays.blogspot.com

Here is the general announcement for other schools to join in on January 27

School Closings, Increased Charter Co-locations, Larger Classes, Merit Pay, Firing Half the Staff at 33 Schools AND A Flawed Teacher Evaluation System...

The Education Mayor?

It's time for the first Fight Back Friday of 2012

(soon to be occupy Friday??)

NEXT FRIDAY: JAN 27th. WEAR BLACK!

PICKET OUT IN FRONT OF YOUR SCHOOL!

LEAFLET AROUND YOUR SCHOOL!

Fliers and stickers and such to follow.

(one announcement flier attached, feel free to use)

PLEASE FORWARD AND POST EVERYWHERE!!

Please respond to this email or email:

FBFCommittee@gmail.com

if you think your school might participate.

Or to ask for more info or help in planning an action.

We want to get coverage for all the actions and let the public know that parents and teachers are fighting back!

Last spring over 50 schools participated on several Fridays. It’s a great way to build solidarity among your staff, reach out to parents and students and to begin to create the coordinated city-wide effort we all know is needed.

It is time for rank and file teachers, parents and our students to move towards becoming ungovernable.

Mayoral control, the attacks on our livelihoods, and on our students' education will not end simply because we want them to.

It will take mass mobilization at the school and city-wide level.

We need to end the privatization of Public Education through charters and merit pay!

End the destructing of education through the abuse of high stakes testing!

Say NO to school turn-arounds that will destroy school communities, our student's education and the lives and careers of our colleagues.

WE MUST DEMAND AN END TO MAYORAL CONTROL!

PARENTS AND EDUCATORS MUST HAVE A CONTROLLING VOICE IN EDUCATION!

JOIN SCHOOLS ALL OVER THE CITY ON JAN 27TH!

And please let us know that you will be participating!

Here are some times articles covering FBF in the past. We have had lots of other coverage as well.

And the FBF Blog from John Dewey HS.

They have an action planned for this Friday as well.

http://fightbackfridays.blogspot.com/

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/fighting-closure-of-a-high-school-on-the-brink/http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/makeshift-groups-rising-to-oppose-cuts/

in solidarity

sam

for the rank and file Fight Back Friday committee

------------
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.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: thanks a lot; Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 2:16:00 PM EST

"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, January 19, 2012

John Dewey HS Fights Back Tomorrow as Other Schools Join in the Battle With Fight Back Friday Jan 27

1 comment: