Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Sat March 24: Register for 2012 NYCoRE Conference!

Location: Julia Richman HS campus - 317 East 67th St.

Starting 8:45 (oy!) but come when you can. This is my 3rd Saturday in a row of getting up early for an all-day event. But I am off all week. What amazes me is how many working teachers are doing all this political work for NYCORE, GEM, TU, ODOE, etc. [Don't miss the rally this Thursday at the NY Post.]

And most of them are on the young end, for those vets who vilify the next-gen of teachers, mistakenly thinking they are clueless and even more clueless ala E4E.

I always find it funny how any event put on by E4E gets coverage (esp by Gotham Schools) while major events put on by the NY Collective of Radical Educators (NYCORE) are ignored even when NYCORE draws so much higher numbers and has so many more supporters than E4E.

I've been going to these all-day conferences for years (mostly so I can attend the after-party where I can feel young again -- well almost --- and no, I I do not suck the blood of young teachers when it gets dark). It is quite a day with hundreds of educators gathering for a number of workshops.

The GEM film, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman, will be shown (at 11AM I believe). By the way, a check came in yesterday for $200 from the Georgia Federation of Teachers and the film is being shown at Mohican Sun by the Conn. Ed Assoc the weekend after next. And yes, the UFT boycott continues.

The GEM initiated high stakes testing committee, "Change the Stakes" will also be doing an afternoon workshop.

I will be there to tape during the day, including the keynote.
The final conference program is online

Last chance to register in advance for 2012 NYCoRE Conference this Saturday, March 24!

(There is on site registration too!)

NYCoRE Conference 3/24/12

http://www.nycore.org/conference

Date: Saturday, March 24, 2012 at 8:45 AM (ET)
Location: Julia Richman Education Complex, 317 East 67th Street

We hope to see you Saturday at NYCoRE's 3rd Annual Conference. A couple of announcements and reminders to make the day a success!

The final conference program is now online. WHAT A LINE UP! If you are coming, we recommend reading it over now and trying to make decisions about which sessions you want to attend. The workshops are first-come first-serve, so get to your room early as they will be closed when full.

We are happy to provide a delicious breakfast and lunch. However, coffee has proven difficult on our end, so if you require a hot beverage to get you going in the morning - we recommend picking up a cup on your way in.

Please arrive EARLY! The keynote is going to be one of the highlights of the day! Kevin Kumashiro will be discussing his new book Bad Teacher in which he breaks down how the mainstream framing of teachers is masking a broader attack on public education. He will be joined by youth actors from the Bronx's DreamYard Action Project. As always, we will open with a powerful performance by an Urban Word Poet. You will be sorry if you miss it! Please be sure to arrive by 8:45-9:00 so you can register, have a pastry/bagel and get situated.
Another new highlight this year is that our collaboration with DreamYard Action Project has resulted in creating new ways to better engage young people at the conference. From a youth open mic lunch to more youth-led and -centered workshops, we are excited about this development. There will be a flier with more details available at the youth registration table.

We also have amazing conference T-shirts in traditional and "girl" cuts for just $10, so bring along some extra cash. You'll also have the opportunity to pre-order the NYCoRE/Edlib Planning to Change the World Planbook for an early bird rate at the NYCoRE table. There are many other amazing ally organizations tabling at the conference with great resources and information on how to get involved.

Please stick around for the whole conference. We are so lucky to have a talented group of young actors from DreamYard Action Project who are closing the conference with a powerful performance.

Finally, after the closing performance, we will be heading one-block away for an after conference after party to continue the conversations and enjoy ourselves. There will be drink specials for conference attendees. Please join us!

There is still time to register, so please spread the word over facebook, twitter etc!

--The 2012 Conference Planning Committee

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 Online

Ed Notes Extended

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Sat March 24: Register for 2012 NYCoRE Conference!

Last chance to register in advance for 2012 NYCoRE Conference this Saturday, March 24!

(There is on site registration too!)

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