Ed Notes Online: Tributes to Chicago Teachers Pour In

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Tributes to Chicago Teachers Pour In

The strike also provides a powerful antidote to the propaganda
campaign for the new Hollywood teacher bashing movie "Won't Back Down". The sea of red shirts marching through Chicago, and the teachers around the country wearing red in solidarity, show that teachers may not be as easy a target as the movie's backers anticipated. The Chicago Teachers Union has flipped the script on Michelle Rhee, Democrats for Education reform and other backers of school privatization and showed how a teachers union can be a militant advocate for the right of students to have a school experience which includes music, art, sports and class sizes small enough to receive individual attention. ---Mark Naison

God Bless Karen Lewis and the entire Chicago Teachers Union for having
the guts to stand up to this corporate onslaught against our public schools. Their fight is our fight. It is time to ask yourself : "Where do I stand"? ---Brian De Vale

Mark and Brian keep the ball rolling as Chicago Teachers Union and Karen Lewis gain nationwide and local support for their stand against the corporate invaders.

Brian De Vale letter to the editor:

The strike in Chicago is the long overdue stand off between those who got into education for a career in teaching vs. the corporate profiteers who

have labor and the working men and women they represent on the run.

Make no mistake, these are rich powerful people who run the publishing, media, corporate education and the Wall St./Hedge Fund world. They are tough, cut throat and have deep pockets (Gates, Bloomberg, Walton Family, Koch Brothers, Democrats for Education Reform, Rupert Murdoch. Mort Zuckerman etc..) They are the melding of the neo liberal and neo con agendas. Neither of those groups like teachers and they despise public sector pensions as it bites into their wallets. They have bought off many of our traditional allies in the Democrat party and have effectively triangulated the unions that represented public school educators.

Everyone has to take a stand, regardless of where any other union, their officials, educator or parent falls on this. I am with Karen Lewis. That is a woman who deserves to be Woman of the Year. To stand up to Rahm Emanuel, Arne Duncan, their boss Obama's misguided education policies and the entire "Reform" Movement takes guts!

These are not just run-of the-mill politicians, but well trained mercenaries for the corporate privatization movement.

God Bless Karen Lewis and the entire Chicago Teachers Union for having
the guts to stand up to this corporate onslaught against our public schools. Their fight is our fight. It is time to ask yourself : "Where do I stand"?

Brian De Vale
CSA Chairman
Community School District # 14

Mark Naison
Chicago's Teachers "Won't Back Down" and Inspire Teachers Throughout the Nation

http://withabrooklynaccent.blogspot.com/2012/09/chicagos-teachers-wont-back-down-and.html

Whatever the outcome, the Chicago Teachers strike shows that cross
section of the nation's teachers are fed up with being made the
whipping boy for the nation's failure to reduce racial and economic
inequality and provide equal educational opportunity for its citizens.
You do not mobilize tens of thousands of people to put their jobs at
risk and take to the picket line without a powerful undercurrent of
frustration and rage with the way they have been treated. The strike
won't stop Education Reformers- who have the support of the nation's
biggest corporations- from cementing their stranglehold on education
policy on the local and national level, and from consolidating their
influence in both major parties. But it pulls aside the facade of
support and compliance with the Obama Administration's education
policies that the Democratic National Convention hoped to project and
revealed how wildly unpopular Race to the Top is with many of America's
teachers, and a small, politically savvy group of public school
parents.

The strike also provides a powerful antidote to the propaganda
campaign for the new Hollywood teacher bashing movie "Won't Back Down" which hits American theaters at the end of the month. The sea of red
shirts marching through Chicago, and the teachers around the country
wearing red in solidarity, show that teachers may not be as easy a
target as the movie's backers anticipated. The Chicago Teachers Union
has flipped the script on Michelle Rhee, Democrats for Education reform
and other backers of school privatization and showed how a teachers
union can be a militant advocate for the right of students to have a
school experience which includes music, art, sports and class sizes
small enough to receive individual attention. There is no guarantee
that the strike will achieve its major goals, but it has already
succeeded in giving America's teachers a huge emotional lift and in
forcing the media to recognize that teachers voices cannot be
marginalized and suppressed without significant consequences

Mark D Naison
Professor of African American Studies and History
Principal Investigator
Bronx African American History Project
640 Dealy Hall
Fordham University
Bronx, NY 10458

Newark Teachers:

ALL OUT THIS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13!

Parents and community members at 13th Avenue/Dr. MLK Renew School have organized a rally to say NO to school closings!

Come together to support them and public education.

At the same time, send a message that we support the Chicago Teachers Union Strike!

Schools are being closed in Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, Newark, and many other cities. Teachers are being laid off, forced to work harder for less pay, evaluated with illegitimate observation tools, and blamed publicly for all social ills. The Chicago Teachers Union is on the front lines of these battles. It's time to unite with the Newark community and show solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Chicago.

Where: 13th Avenue/Dr. MLK Renew School (359 13th Ave.), Newark, 07103

When: 4:00 pm

What: Bring signs! "NO to School Closings, NO to School Privatization,"

"We Support Chicago Teachers,"

"Parents, Students, Teachers Unite, Same Struggle, Same Fight!"

ALSO:

The NEW Caucus has written a letter to the Chicago Teachers Union, and are taking up a collection. (letter is attached)

Next week, the NEW Caucus will mail this letter and donation to the CTU. See a NEW Caucus member to donate to the CTU solidarity fund.

In Solidarity,

Newark Education Workers Caucus

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

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Tributes to Chicago Teachers Pour In

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