Ed Notes Online: Laurel Sturt's "Davonte's Inferno" Blows the Lid on Ed Deform

Monday, August 25, 2014

Laurel Sturt's "Davonte's Inferno" Blows the Lid on Ed Deform

We are awash in a sea of books on education produced mostly by non-teachers, pseudo-journalists, often with more than a tinge of bias. It seems that everyone covering the education wars spurred by ed deform must write a book. We hear about building better teachers, teacher wars, and how we learn, just to name a few. But books by real teachers who might actually know something always seem to take second place in the mainstream media.

When teachers do write books they are often about their experiences with children or about the tricks they have learned. Many of them are from teachers who had a cup of coffee in the classroom before going off to write a book. John Owens' "Confessions of a Bad Teacher" was an enjoyable read, exposing the kind of monster principals we hear about so often. But John only taught less than a year, and coming from the publishing world, to which he returned soon after being forced to resign, he didn't have the full picture.

Laurel Sturt's "Davonte's Inferno" is much along the

same lines as John's book, but with the perspective of a decade long teacher working in the particular hell created under the Bloomberg/Klein era.

Laurel also entered teaching as a 2nd career, from the fashion industry, just as Bloomberg took control of the NYC school system. Her book is a year by year chronicle of her life in the classroom in a hell-hole of a school in a high poverty area of the Bronx where each succeeding principal (there were four over her ten years in the system) was worse than the one before. Laurel makes us party to the hilarious and often tragic parade of idiot principals, from the aptly-named Cruella to the ego-maniac Guido to Principal Dearest to Rosemary's Baby.

What makes Laurel's book special is that she does not just tell a story about one school's dysfunction. She ties the insanity of the national, state and citywide policies and how they impacted on the day to day functioning of her classroom and her school. Just about every one of her supervisors from the principals on down took whatever policies were being handed down and managed to implement them in the worst possible way imaginable.

After a decade of trudging into her school through a neighborhood rife with poverty, she finally left teaching around the time the Bloomberg era was in its final death throes.

Finally freed from living in a horror movie, she was able to write her book free from the anxiety of retaliation. Well freed is a relative word. One day there was a knock on her door and standing there were 2 guys from one of the city or DOE investigative arms. They were there to harass her over the book with some bogus story that she was violating something or other in writing about her experiences and her school. Since she didn't name names or the school and the fact that she was no longer employed by the DOE, she was able to respond by slamming the door in their faces.

Laurel did a great radio interview with Leonard Lopate on WNYC: Ten Years in a Bronx Public School - WNYC (http://www.amazon.com/Davontes-Inferno-Years-Public-School/dp/0991205103/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385057029&sr=8-1&keywords=laurel+m+sturt)

Laurel is also a MORE and BAT supporter.
More links to reviews, etc. below the jump.

DAVONTE'S INFERNO | Laurel M. Sturt

laurelmsturt.com/laurelsturt/davontes-inferno-2/

DAVONTE'S INFERNO. From my first week of teaching in a high-needs school, I felt consumed by the urge to write about my experience: the multiple ...

Ten Years in a Bronx Public School - WNYC

www.wnyc.org/story/ten-years-bronx-public-school/

WNYC

Oct 16, 2013 - Laurel Sturt talks about her life in a high-poverty elementary school in the Bronx.Davonte's Inferno: Ten Years in the New York Public School ...

Davonte's Inferno - Goodreads

Nov 21, 2013 - Davonte's Inferno has 15 ratings and 6 reviews. Kara said: Not sure if I'll be able to power through and finish this book (I'm on page 102)...if I do, ...

Davonte's Inferno: Ten Years in the New York ... - Facebook

www.facebook.com/davontesinferno

Davonte's Inferno: Ten Years in the New York Public School Gulag. 515 likes · 6 talking about this. Calling on policy, research, humor and a generous...

Davonte's Inferno: Ten Years in the New York Public School ...

www.barnesandnoble.com/.../davontes-inferno.../111509...

Barnes & Noble

Rating: 3 - ‎2 votes

Davonte's Inferno: Ten Years in the New York Public School Gulag. Shop NOOK Press eBooks. This NOOK Book is Lendable LendMe™. Learn More.

Davonte's Inferno: Ten Years in the New York Public School ...

www.barnesandnoble.com/.../davontes-inferno.../111509...

Barnes & Noble

Rating: 3 - ‎2 votes

Available in: NOOK Book (eBook), Paperback. Ever-irreverent Laurel M. Sturt pulls no punches detailing her bizarre life in the trenches of a high-poverty ...

Teaching in Davonte's Inferno: A Must Read Summer Book ...

criticalclassrooms.wordpress.com/.../teaching-in-davontes-inferno-a-must...

Jul 2, 2014 - Refreshingly, she's real with us in her no-holds-barred memoir Davonte's Inferno: Ten Years In The New York Public School Gulag, ...

Laurel Sturt's "Davonte's Inferno" - Ed Notes Online - Blogger

ednotesonline.blogspot.com/.../tonight-laurel-sturts-davontes-inferno.ht...

May 14, 2014 - I started reading Laurel Sturt's "Davonte's Inferno," her story of 10 years in hell in the NYC school system under the Bloomberg years, on a ...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: I emailed John Owens a while back and asked him if the DOE tried to hassle him after he wrote his book. He told me "no". I had a feeling that the goon squad at the DOE would try and mess with him. I guess they just went after Laurel instead.; Monday, August 25, 2014 at 4:52:00 PM EDT

"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

Monday, August 25, 2014

Laurel Sturt's "Davonte's Inferno" Blows the Lid on Ed Deform

1 comment: