Ed Notes Online: Regent Choice of MaryEllen Elia - EVILia - as State Ed Comm Sends FU Message to Ed Deform Resistance

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Regent Choice of MaryEllen Elia - EVILia - as State Ed Comm Sends FU Message to Ed Deform Resistance

I'm a bit late to the party slamming our new NY State Ed Commissioner, MaryEllen Elia in a UNANIMOUS vote by the Regents. I can get that it might have been a majority of these slugs -- but UNANIMOUS? Where was Cathy Kashin, who has been active up front and behind the scenes in

What NY State has to look forward to

voicing some opposition to the policies? We're betting she wants to replace Tisch and I'm thinking she may have felt that a dissident vote at this time might hurt her chances. While some people are rooting for her, frankly, I don't trust her intentions. But back to MaryEllen Elia, the very worst of the worst person that could have been chosen.

Some people on the Change the Stakes listserve are putting her in the Cathie Black category - I wouldn't since this horror story has an education resume and doesn't need any waivers.

EVILia has been chosen to reign in the opt out movement and other resistance - since she has a heavy foot I don't think it will be by offering olive branches but by using threats.

While some people lament this choice, I don't. We would never see a choice of a progressive like Bill Cala and I would rather deal with an accident waiting to happen than with some slick dude. From what I'm reading, EVILia may not be capable of turning on the charm so I predict great days ahead for we bloggers as she gives us material.

Here are some thoughts from RBE and James Eterno at ICE:

Perdido Street School

NY Board Of Regents To Parents And Teachers: Screw You! - In naming MaryEllen Elia, a former superintendent of Hillsborough, Florida schools to be NYSED commissioner today, the New York State Board of Regents sent... "Reign Of Chaos" For Ten Years At A Hillsborough Middle School Under MaryEllen Elia's District Leadership

We'll be looking at the track record of the new NYSED Commissioner, MaryEllen Elia, nicknamed EVILia by some Florida parents, over the next few posts.
Here's the first piece - the Tampa Bay paper on one troubled school in the Hillsborough district that the paper claims was exacerbated by district busing and magnet school policies under Elia:

ICEUFT Blog

REACTION TO APPOINTMENT OF NEW STATE ED COMMISSIONER & PUBLIC ADVOCATE SEEKS REFORMS TO MAYORAL CONTROL - Yesterday was a big news day for public education. The Board of Regents has finally replaced John King as State Education Commissioner. The new Commissio...

4 comments:

Unknown said...: Norm, counting on you to make sense of this. She is like Cathy Black in the degree of FU to the public she represents. But the closed-door, unanimous pick of a Gates/CCSS toady after this huge opt-out spring -- this is playing out like a script too implausible for TV. I mean, are the regents really a wholly owned subsidiary of the billionaires boys club? And don't those same billionaires have less self-defeating ways of going about their business? How can this not inflame the resistance? Is doing that part of their game? I mean, John King had lost all credibility; by the end it didn't matter what he did, everyone who was paying attention had come rely dismissed him for having betrayed parents. The new appointment had to involve the public go overcome that legacy. This one reinforces it. She comes in exactly where King left off: with no credibility and worse, no capacity to earn it. I don't see how she can survive a month. Help, Norm! What's going on here ???; Wednesday, May 27, 2015 at 10:10:00 PM EDT
ed notes online said...: Jeff
Of course she will survive - they will come at people from every single direction. She is bad cop. Farina will be good cop. And don't forget our wonderful state and city unions which came out for her -- she and Randi and Gates have long-time relationship - if the union doesn't oppose then everyone goes along. Her job is to threaten financial penalties for opting out and actually undertaking them. hardball to kill the beast. I'm more cynical than you and generally expect the worst.; Wednesday, May 27, 2015 at 10:32:00 PM EDT
Unknown said...: Unfortunately your cynicism has proven -- well, justified. But so has my naive Midwestern optimism! Three years ago, when the term "opt out" hadn't even been agreed on by the trickle of us who were doing it, it might have seemed impossible to have company already in the hundreds of thousands -- and a mainstream media that hardly has any bright reporters but has at long last acknowledged our existence. I'm going to make you a bet: beers on me if Elia lasts through next testing season. Also if she doesn't--I'll want to celebrate! Seriously, I think if I -- apolitical most of my adult life -- have been jarred into consciousness -- those who are counting on compliance by the parents of NY State are going to have a rude awakening themselves. In any case, I know where to tune in to get the most astute analysis of our reality now and in the future.; Wednesday, May 27, 2015 at 11:40:00 PM EDT
ed notes online said...: A few beers sound great. I think she will last but it is up to us to make her ineffective -- go after her at every public appearance -- force her into hiding.
Growing opt out is our way out -- let's watch what they do to subvert it - for us we must make inroads in NYC to make opt out powerful. That is the task of CTS over the next 10 months.; Thursday, May 28, 2015 at 12:05:00 AM 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

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Regent Choice of MaryEllen Elia - EVILia - as State Ed Comm Sends FU Message to Ed Deform Resistance

4 comments: