How interesting that E4E is allowed into schools by the DOE officials to push the political agenda pressuring the UFT to give in on ed evaluation. This is a blatant abuse by the DOE. I bet here is a law being violated somewhere here.
Imagine if MORE were allowed to do PD with its political agenda and the howls of protest. It seems there was some pushback but where is the UFT on this issue? When I was invited to speak to teachers, not during official PD but on their own time, there were howls of protest from the Unity chapter leader and push back from the district reps.
Someone at Truman should check the sign-in books and get the names.
I received a request from someone at the school for more info in E4E.
Here is the email with a link
At Monday's PD, we were visited by Educators4Excellence. For your consideration, it is funded by Bill Gates [see article]. This is an interest group advocating a political agenda.People at the school want more info on E4E. If you have some stuff to share leave the link in a comment and I'll send the info along.
May 22, 2011
Behind Grass-Roots School Advocacy, Bill Gates
By SAM DILLON
Bill Gates' foundation pays educators to pose alternatives to union orthodoxies regarding seniority and test scores.
At the one E4E activity I attended (a pre-screening of a movie, followed by a "happy hour"), most of the attendees seemed to be recently-arrived-to-the-area young people, now teaching in the area because they lost their jobs to people more senior in places like Washington State and California. Because of this, they were a tad sour on unions. The E4E aparatchiks, on the other hand, appeared to be very young bright people who had no or very little involvement themselves in education. They were not teaching themselves, and either had never taught before, or had taught for only a very short period of time. They were simply hirees of E4E, apparently tho sell the program and ideology of the group. They're all very attractive, friendly and charismatic in a way that makes them likely to attract people. Above all, they're very, very, very POLITE, in a kind of cult-like, unnatural way.
ReplyDeleteYes, I noticed the naive, slightly blissed-out, cult-like vibe among when some of us showed up to rain on their little parade of self-flattery ("I'm Not Satisfactory, I'm Excellent! I'm Not Satisfactory, I'm Excellent!"). A little creepy, and needless to say the organization itself is very insidious.
ReplyDeleteTFA operates much the same way, with that corporate-friendly facade. Yes, so very friendly, as they take people's jobs, undermine working conditions, and work towards turning the schools completely over to their funders.