Ed Notes Online: E4E Roundup: Giddey-up Doggie

Monday, December 3, 2012

E4E Roundup: Giddey-up Doggie

DFER and Gates and Whitney better ask for their money back as E4E could barely muster much of a group at their first rally. The best line from Evan Stone: we lost a few to lesson planning.

Well how much fun did the crew we helped organize for the E4E rally have yesterday? Given we did this ad hoc in 24 hours our turnout which included such luminaries as Fiorillo, Bloggers Raging Horse and South Bronx School, members of MORE and Change the Stakes, I think we had more real teachers there than E4E.

I went there with the intention (and a leaflet) with the goal of educating some of these people who I felt were duped. But upon short conversations I realized they are not duped. They are people who are out of the classroom or about to be out of the classroom.

One of our guys wrote this:

It is interesting when thinking about the event this afternoon about just how contradictory E4E's messages were. As some of their signage suggests, some of their members are craving meaningful support like the rest of us, while some of them want higher salaries and others just seem to be misguided elitists whose claims of support for unionism is so obviously ridiculous when it becomes clear that they support the erosion of due process protections and seniority rights that are basic principles in unionism.

Below the text are some photos taken by Michael Solo, who teaches photography at John Dewey HS. Michael rode shotgun with me on the way in and back.

As the speeches started with Evan Stone and I was doing some video I basically lost it when he started talking about the sad loss of the $300 million -- "Will you demand the money be used to reduce class size," I screamed, knowing full well the DFER/GATES/Students Last masters will never let E4E talk about class size, a no-no in ed deform. I did have one decent conversation with a guy who seemed like a real teacher, asking him if he felt reducing class size would make a difference. His response was right from the book: studies show that it helps in elementary schools, not as much in middle and high schools. Jeez, all they can do is quote studies or stats -- what about you and kids? If you were a high school teacher do you think it would make a difference if you had 27 instead of 32 in each class? Imagine: in 5 classes a day, 25 less kids, 25 less papers to mark, 25 less parents to be in touch with. Oh, I get it. It is only about student outcomes, not teacher workload and how that affects teaching.

I do have video but as usual am way behind others. Below the links to blogs about yesterday's events are links to videos Pat Dobosz shot. I'm heading over to a MORE meeting and then to my first UFT Exec Bd meeting in years, where I may eat enough to give me more heart burn than I need.

The Ignorant and the Egregious: Educators 4 Excellence Hold a Rally

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South Bronx School

E4E's Eric Cartman Goes Silent on The Crack Team

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Chaz wasn't there but blogged about it.

Chaz's School Daze

The Typical Education4Excellence Member - Clueless

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Neither was RBE but here is the usual good stuff.

Educators4Excellence Group Members Even Dumber In Person

Here are Pat's videos.

[20121202021513 Dec. 2, 2012] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfnOETdbdnw

[20121202022423 Dec. 2, 2012] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HfAApU0N9M

[20121202022759 Dec.2, 2012] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGFuk-o27V4

[20121202023143 Dec 2, 2012] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY0vjGMMnbo

[20121202030653 Dec. 2, 2012] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqS-LBMF1kw

[20121202030913 Dec. 2, 2012] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgq7LCILjd4

[20121202031401 Dec. 2, 2012] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7jZCKtYVW8

Fiorillo and Walsh tag team

Who's that fat guy? Gloria is behind me.

Poor Evan looks miserable

5 comments:

Anonymous said...: How can any new evaluation system help teachers if more and more principals do not know how to teach, mentor and develop their staff members?

It's so insane.

The Carol Burris's of the world are moving on...the replacements are know-nothings...which is another reason why they need fascist spreadsheet check off lists to help them "rate" teachers.

What's Michael Friedman doing there? Is he a Unity scout? LOL; Monday, December 3, 2012 at 5:37:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...: Good for you guys! Keep up all the good work... and for a voice not funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (as is those of some certain educators 4 excellence who shall not be named).; Monday, December 3, 2012 at 10:20:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...: Every venue in New York City does great job in hosting events and these venues offer excellent food with amazing service.
nyc event location; Tuesday, December 4, 2012 at 1:31:00 AM EST
Michael Fiorillo said...: It felt really good to ruin Evan's day.

It was about time he was confronted publicly about his group's deceptiveness. After all, manipulating the naivete of new teachers, for the purpose of screwing over their colleagues and pleasing his oligarch funders, is a really despicable thing.; Tuesday, December 4, 2012 at 4:58:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...: How can we demonstrate if we are busy preparing lessons and becoming effective teachers....I love it. Even stone sounds more like a jagged rock!; Tuesday, December 4, 2012 at 7:34:00 AM 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."

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