Updated Again: AFT Update - and Gates as the Most Dangerous Man in America

Update 2: July 11, 1am PST

The morning session is over and we are pre-Gates, but this came in from Leonie Haimson:

Hope its not too late to create a buzz at Seattle…please share!

The most dangerous man in America is taking the stage at the AFT conference in Seattle today:

Watch out, America! You have nothing to lose but your public school system, at the hands of the richest man in the country who, like a spoiled child carelessly playing with toys, breaks one after another.

check it out at

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson/the-most-dangerous-man-in_b_641832.htm

Key debates on educational issues
[I have video of it all so won't go into tremendous detail.]

The most controversial issues on education were up for debate this morning. Reso # 5 on teacher evaluation was supposed to be the most contentious. Randi/Unity prepared carefully. A few weeks ago the Unity delegation met in NY and were told this was the crucial reso and were prepared to manipulate in committee and at the floor debate.

Chicago vs NYC was a key background. Chicago/CORE people were a little taken aback at some of the tactics used at the committee meetings on Thursday. At the main sessions one CORE/CTU teacher after another were the key people standing up to Unity/Progressive Caucus, telling of the experience of being in the belly of the Duncan/Daly beast.

Today on Reso 5 the mics were packed with Progressive Caucus people until Randi pulled the democracy issue and "allowed" 2 people - CTUers it turned out - to speak against some of the language that they said opened up teachers to attacks. But then the question was called as we always see in NYC.

Chicago and NYC cooperate
On the closing schools reso we saw a different scenario. A UFTer/Unity got up to amend the reso and everything she said was on the mark. The next speaker was from Chicago/CORE - local 1 - and thanked local 2 for working with them to strengthen the reso. Both speeches were very powerful.

I spoke to CORE people after and apparently there were some intense negotiations between the two big powerhouse locals to find some common ground. And they did.

What is playing out here is a baptism of the Chicago group just a few days after taking power in the union. I have been very impressed with the number of quality people. One after another you speak to are articulate and educated on so many issues. CORE clearly has done a great job of educating, organizing and mobilizing. In two years at Detroit they will be prepared.

But that won't stop Randi from trying to coopt them, something she is so good at doing.

To be continued

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Everyone wants part of the GEM banner - well, not everyone

Speaking of co-opting. New Action's Jonathan Halabi is here. Now don't get into a snit. New Action did not get delegate positions. He is here as college prof delegate - PSC. As some of you know he is not my favorite person for his constant ICE bashing - he was even overheard doing it in a bar the other night. You know, "the ICE opposes everything mantra" - like mayoral control, merit pay, measuring teachers by data - stuff like that. Stuff that the UFT has supported.

When there was discussion about the Gates protest today and people talked about holding up the GEM banner, there are reports Halabi balked, saying GEM was sectarian or something like that. Ridiculous. Though GEM has many ICE people in it, it has attracted people from every active group in the UFT. Not New Action of course. GEM has not been active within the UFT very much and is not a caucus, one of the reasons so many ICE people who feel there is a need for a broader movement than just a caucus have jumped on board. New Action on the other hand sticks to the narrowest of issues and does little more than function as a completely owned subsidiary of Unity.

In defense of ICE/GEM
Pretty ironic that Lisa North and Gloria Brandman, two key ICE people have been amongst the leaders of the the AFT P&J committee which Halabi has been hanging around. And they have been on the UFT Peace and Justice Committee. And the UFTers to stop the war.

Other ICEer/GEMers: Fiorillo is one of most respected voices out there. As is John Lawhead. Julie Woodward has been relentless in holding the UFT's feet to the fire. Arthur Goldstein is chapter leader of the second largest school in the city and is one of the leading voices in defense of teachers with his columns at Gotham Schools. Eterno and Kaufman have been enormously respected for their strength and knowledge of the contract. And John Elfrank chapter leader of Murray Bergtraum. And the retirees: Ellen Fox, Loretta and Gene Prisco, Vera Pavone who co-wrote the review of the Kahlenberg book with me - and she did most of the work. It's late. I'm sure I'm forgetting people. Jeez! The nerve to disparage the work of these people.

How else have we been able to build alliances with just about every group in the city - teachers and community activists? From NYCORE to Teachers Unite to TJC. And parent groups around the city. People I meet here from all over the nation know our work and want to stay in touch. Ed Notes received over 2000 hits in the last 3 days alone.

We have links nationwide. Chicago CORE are allies and we've been spending time with them. Karen Lewis know our work. And the Washington DC crew with Candi Peterson and Nathan Saunders who are here. Detroit called us when they were taking action. LA people are in touch. We linked to a group in Philly on this trip. Now, quick - name New Action activists who have done anything close to this work.

Who do they call? GEM
Halabi may carp about ICE and GEM but he and New Action have been invisible while GEM/ICEers have been at numerous charter school co-location and school closing meetings supporting teachers and parents and building alliances. When they need support they call us. And we have been there for them.


Well, anyway, given all this, today he impressed me - for about 2 minutes. He got up to speak against a reso that everyone supported. It had language on credit recovery and some other issues and he was nervous but extremely articulate. I will get the video up when I can (I am very backed up on the videos). What he said is important to us in NYC.

And he did put up a very good piece critical of Weingarten on the first convention day.
AFT Convention in Seattle Day 1

Maybe there's some hope for some people in New Action. I respect and like New Action's Arjun Janah who today wrote a great poem about Bill Gates which I will post.

After burn
I was hanging with Stephen Sawchuk today and we had some good chats. I really didn't know his work 'till this week but I will take a closer look.

He was chosen to do a private interview with Gates post-speech. We talked about what he would ask and I am looking forward to seeing what he writes. Meanwhile follow his posts at: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/


I got to watch his computer while he went to meet with Gates. Maybe next time we switch and I interview Gates- hear that Janet Bass (who as AFT press chief was extremely gracious throughout the week- in case you didn't know I am here as press for The Wave - I think there is a Rockaway somewhere in the Pacific Northwest).

While I was baby sitting his computer I ended up in the midst of what looked suspiciously like a Unity Caucus meeting about voting in the AFT elections. I wasn't asked to leave as almost everyone was gracious - only Sandi March was nasty - but what do you expect? I was extremely pleased when Alan Lubin came over to say hello. Alan is one of the most respected union officials I have met. He was once Dist 32 rep and then Brooklyn boro chief. He is VP of NYSUT for quite a while. I had heard he was ill but he looked great. He just retired. No matter how much we all disagreed politically, Alan was always a mensch, never making things personal, always with a quip. It is funny but many of the old guard Unity people do not look at this as war. But I find many of the Unity relative newbies are rabid.


From two observers, one of them associated with the Chicago Teachers Union Twitter feed on Gates appearance at AFT convention

Still Sleepy in Seattle

Before heading back to the convention floor here is a brief summary of this morning's events.

Randi was running her first AFT convention - she was elected 2 years ago but the incumbent ran it - so this was a UFT Delegate Assembly on steroids. Imagine instead of listening to Randi for an hour and a half you has to sit there for 3 days. Oy!

Just as I got in Randi started dancing. Aw shucks, Randi, I didn't know you felt that way. But it turned out the AFT has added more members to be sold out. Watch the video see if you can spot some old Unity friends.



Then it was off to Wild Ginger restaurant to protest Arne Duncan's lunch with Senator Patti Murray and others. We had a rousing crew and I got some footage but unfortunately my mic failed and I lost most of the sound. So I won't bother to put any of it up. Mic is fixed for the AFT P&J meeting this afternoon where I am supposed to speak about conditions in NY for 5 minutes. It should only take 30 seconds.

Randi showed a video supposedly about how the affilates were fighting back (smart of course) around the nation. But of course it was all about Randi. Randi goes to California. Randi goes to Florida. Randi goes to Detroit (where the next AFT convention will take place in 2 years - can't wait to see how many Unity slugs want to opt out of that gig.) Remember how many pics of Randi in the NY Teacher? This was new age video with her all over 3 screens. Oh, yes, the local unions had a few shots of them. Then every local in the video got up to thank Randi.

Missing? Washington DC where Randi cancelled the union election and Chicago. Behind the scenes Randi is doing what she does best - trying to woo a potential opposition group with political offers - this is playing out right now in the floor so I have to get over there.

I'll have more in this space later on some observations.

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The Bill Gates leaflet is finished. Shortened and sweetened by Sharon Higgins. Thanks for input to Susan Ohanian, Leonie Haimson, Diane Ravitch's wonderful quotes, Lisa North, Gloria Brandman, NYC Educator, Gandi, and Homer.

Bill Gates: Vulture Philanthropist

Bill Gates at the AFT: Bringing in a Trojan Horse

The chief ed deformer in the AFT hen house. But with Randi Weingarten playing the role of the Manchurian Candidate, (or the Trojan Horse herself as Fiorillo notes) those chicks came home to roost a long time ago.

Or as NYC Educator states in today's brilliant post.

Nazis Address Synagogue

Klansman Addresses NAACP Convention

.....a follow-up to yesterday's post where he catalogued Gates' persistent failures of judgement on ed policy - and touches on just one of the numerous failures of Microsoft even in the computer field. (Both of us are Apple users for a reason - and I who was a school tech since 1984, know full well the extent of so many Gates failures.)

Beginning July 8, the AFT convention will take place in Seattle. That city's favorite son, Bill Gates will address the convention. Diane Ravitch will not - she is going to speak at the NEA a few days before instead.

I wonder if the AFT leadership really wants to hear what Diane has to say since they seem much more in alignment with Gates' educational philosophy that hers.

One of my thoughts is that Gates speaking to the AFT is like the proverbial Trojan Horse (thanks to David Bellel for the graphic), though Michael Fiorillo's comment – "Gates is not the Trojan Horse; Randi Weingarten is" - may make more sense.

I will be in Seattle to cover the convention for Ed Notes, The Wave and as a stringer for Substance and will try to put up daily reports. If the Wall Street Journal or the NY Times wants a stringer I am available. I work cheap - which means nada.

Below are the 2 target posts from NYC Educator that I am cross posting to give them the widest possible coverage. They are so in the must read category as to make me insanely jealous that I didn't write them myself.

The only statement I would dispute is: "Fortunately, he'll only be addressing those teachers who've openly collaborated with him, so we won't have to worry about his converting anyone new." That may be true of the recently elected 800 Unity slugs who would vote unanimously to abolish free air if told to by their UFT masters - anything for a free trip, though recent contacts with Unity people indicate that even some of them are not happy. But then there are those 150 newly elected delegates from Chicago and others that have been in touch from around the nation who know exactly what Gates is and the role he plays in undermining public education and using his money to privatize not just schools but control over educational policy.

Ay, Caramba!

Nazis Address Synagogue

Klansman Addresses NAACP Convention

Unlikely headlines. Nonetheless, I keep reading that Bill Gates is addressing the AFT convention. It kind of makes me glad I won't be there. What the heck can Bill Gates, who knows nothing but union-busting, trendy gimmicks, and ungodly alliances with Wal-Mart, tell a bunch of teachers?

Fortunately, he'll largely be addressing those teachers who've openly collaborated with him, so we won't have to worry much about his converting anyone new. After all, UFT leadership insisted we collaborate with him on a value-added experiment back in September. Bill placed his surveillance cameras in classrooms all over the city to figure out some sort of rubric for good teaching. His lies and Big Brother techniques alienated a handful of teachers in my school to the point at which they dropped out, turning down his $1500 payoff.

Then, before this experiment even concluded, before its results were even imposed upon us, UFT leadership made a deal with the state to have value-added used to assess teachers. They promised us they'd do research. They promised us they'd negotiate how it was done. After all, there's no research whatsoever to support the validity of value-added. I suppose if you're going to do something baseless and stupid, you may as well do it carefully. Teachers will certainly lose jobs as a result of this, particularly coupled with the rubber-room agreement that makes sure they're dumped quickly and efficiently.

Last week, though, in order to avoid some of the school closings (which, if not for the UFT collaboration on mayoral control, may not have even been a consideration), the UFT agreed that a bunch of schools would begin value-added assessments next year, a full year ahead of the agreement, with no research, no planning, and no specifically negotiated plan. One might argue, since the entire notion has no validity, that there's no point fretting over a valid model.

Considering all that, why shouldn't the most destructive force in education address his collaborators? What have we got to lose? You'd hope that an AFT convention would be a place where they'd discuss a productive future for education, a vision for improving the lot of teachers.

Instead, you've got the Antichrist coming to deliver the Sunday sermon.

Ding Dong, the Kin Is Dead

Microsoft, after having invested who knows how many millions, has killed its cool new phone, the Kin. Here's the problem--no one wanted to buy it. So the Kin is kind of a modern-day Edsel. How could Microsoft, the company practically synonymous with rich guy/ educational genius Bill Gates make a mistake? It's a mystery. Why am I writing this on a Mac? Yet another mystery.

Of course, Bill made a few errors himself. There was that small schools thing, which was a great idea, except that it didn't work. Oh well, you can't have everything. What's important is that Gates is still widely regarded as an expert, despite his utter lack of credentials and his repeated willingness to support ideas that are not only unproven, but which must be repeatedly propped financially up by Wal-Mart to even exist.

Now, of course, we're talking about charter schools, the most recent panacea, the magic bullet that will change everything just like all the previous magic bullets failed to do. Bill's billions will see to that. With Eli Broad, the Wal-Mart family, and all the faux-Democrat hedge fund managers, they continue to push non-union charters as ways to get our children accustomed to working long hours with no play time--just as they want them to do as adults.

For our children, though, the ones who will be left with even fewer decent job opportunities, Bill's latest wide-eyed golly gee whiz venture may not prove to be an Edsel after all.

Indeed, it could be the Titanic.

UFT Partner Bill Gates at it again

Gates Foundation gives $335 million to raise teacher effectiveness

Frizzle Sizzle had this comment on ICE-Mail:
"...in my last chapter elections I was the first at my school to expose the fact that Bill Gates' goal is to privatize our school system AND now tinker and alter tenure in our contract."

Well of course the chapter wouldn't know about Gates and the privatization movement if they read anything the UFT puts out. Gates is their partner. Their collaborator. Some Vichyssoise, anyone?

The UFT could be the great educator of the membership and the public. But the leadership purposely doesn't connect the dots. Some people think they are stupid. Or bamboozled. Not so. They know exactly what they are doing. Collaborating in letting the air out of the teacher labor movement. Not that they like doing it. But they have no choice. No strategy for fighting off the data testing. Or the charters. Or the merit pay. No strategy at all. And no prospect for developing a strategy. So they are left with nothing more than a holding action and the bet they can hold onto power and get what they can out of using their control over the membership to get what they need for the top oligarchy.

Susan O has an article from WAPO and a comment:

Ohanian Comment:
schools. This agenda includes For teacher "effectiveness," read "test scores." This is one more step in the Gates use of venture philanthropy, marching lockstep in the neoliberal agenda to corporatizedeprofessionalizing teachers. Under the neoliberals, control of schools shifts from teachers, parents, and communities to private foundations, corporations, and investors. Under neoliberals, public schools are a business, students are consumers. Teachers? They are lackeys operating at the will of the system stocked by principals who must become entrepreneurs. This money is dirty, buying the soul of a school and eating it alive.

Here are some excerpts from the WAPO article:

For the [Gates] foundation, a central player in school reform, the initiative reflects an evolution in strategy. Several years ago, it concentrated on breaking large high schools into smaller, more personal academic communities. That effort had mixed results. In a conference call, Melinda Gates, co-chair of the foundation, said she and Microsoft founder Bill Gates had discovered that innovation takes long-term commitment because school systems are often "entrenched" in their ways and teachers "siloed in their classrooms." "We have been in this work for almost a decade" she said. "We've learned a lot about what works. . . . Let's focus on the thing that actually matters the most, which is the teacher." (Gates serves on the board of the Washington Post Co.)


If you watched the Sat nite live opening where the Chinese Pres asks Obama to kiss him. "I like being kissed when someone is screwing me," he says as he bends over and assumes the position.

Can Mulgrew and the Unity leadership crew kiss a 100,000 or so working UFT members without getting chapped lips?

The UFT and the Gates Project to Evaluate Teachers

The UFT attempt to portray Bill Gates as some benevolent force just looking to find an innocent way to evaluate teachers is one of the great misleads in a sea of UFT/AFT/Unity Caucus obfuscations.

Mulgrew's response to a complaint from a teacher is priceless:

As you have so rightly stated public education is under attack but more importantly to me our profession is under attack.

He then goes on to say:

As for the Gates foundation they are funding the project but please don't confuse them with chancellor. When Gates finished the small school project they determined that it was not a success and that curriculum and school supports were more important than a school structure which was very ethical considering that the small school movement originated with them.

You mean the same Bill Gates who is one of the leading forces in undermining public education? Some think the union leadership is just stupid. Not so. They know exactly what they are doing. They soften the membership up and weaken their defenses to allow the virus into the ranks.

By the way, guess who also embraced the small school movement despite repeated attempts by Ed Notes, ICE and TJC to discuss the important aspect of undermining and closing the large comprehensive high schools? Your corporate friendly UFT. No mea culpas from the UFT on this one. Or any other of the ocean of disasters they have supported, including one of the mothers of all – allowing the use of high stakes test data to judge teacher performance.

There have been some interesting comments on our post "Teacher Evaluations: Bill Gates and the Unity/UFT,...".

Witness Melody, who seems to agree with Ed Notes on most issues:

"I think the UFT is right on this one. The teacher measurement & accountability issue is a train coming down the track, and I don't think laying our bodies down in front of it is a realistic option, because we WILL get run over."

The big problem with the neoliberal agenda when it comes to education is that it wants accountability on the cheap...

Melody doesn't really understand the full measure of the neoliberalism free market/government is bad philosophy, led by Bill Gates and his money. Gates, by the way, complains about the pubic school monopoly and calls for choice in schools while making his money by running the Microsoft monopoly and doing everything he could to deny choice in operating systems, browsers, data bases, spreadsheets, etc. And by the way, there's a great fortune to be made for Microsoft in the large urban school systems the Gates foundation supports. Check how many Gates supported schools have Apple computers (not based on any real knowledge like most conjectures here, but on my own paranoiac instincts.)

Anon responded to Melody (read all responses at the original post):

Re: the train analogy... In general, ICE and other opposition groups advocate fighting, which I would argue is the opposite of laying bodies down in front of an oncoming train.

It should be obvious to EVERYONE that there are massive problems with our union participating in a study funded by the Gates Foundation. The UFT’s position should be that, for a myriad of obvious reasons, we should not be using ANY student data to measure teachers. And once again, not only has the leadership capitulated to the idea of these measurements, but they are actively supporting the Gates Foundation's CONTROL of the measurement system!

It is extremely naïve to think that teachers will be allowed in ANY way to influence the results of a study sponsored by a private company with a vested interest in the privatization of education. If you read Mulgrew's letter carefully, the "participation" he asks from teachers amounts to nothing more than allowing them to be the subjects of the study. Nowhere does he mention any kind of input from the participating teachers. Instead, "Gates-funded researchers" will be "collect[ing] information about their teaching from a broad variety of sources." It seems, from this letter, that the teachers and the UFT leadership will have zero control over how students will be tested, let alone how the results are used – and the UFT leadership is perfectly fine with that.

Clearly, the main purpose of this study is to deal with the revealing fact that the majority of students in charter schools are performing equal to or worse than other New York City public school students on standardized tests. This must be humiliating for the privatization effort, because they are part of the same agenda that touts these tests as accurate measures of student achievement. If not for this fact, if kids in charters were doing as well or better than kids in other schools, you can bet that the Gates Foundation would be holding up the results of the ridiculous standardized tests we have now as "proof" that their schools (and their teachers) work better, and they would have no reason to even consider alternative methods of measuring teacher ability. Instead of exposing the charter school scam and supporting its own teachers, the UFT leadership embraces it.

I am not the tiniest bit surprised that the Unity caucus came on here and implied that their opposition is just a small group of petty teachers. Their goal is to make those who demand that they actually [gasp!] defend the membership feel that they are small in number and isolated. Ignore this particular tactic of theirs. It’s old, tired, and smacks of desperation… they know they’re fooling fewer and fewer people every day.

Teacher Evaluations: Bill Gates and the Unity/UFT, Perfect Together

I'm just getting to the issue of that study on teacher evaluation being sponsored by Bill Gates in partnership with the UFT. At the bottom of it all is the neoliberal agenda.

We're certainly not surprised that they are in bed together. Bringing business practices to the classroom is part of the neoliberal agenda. And coming up with a way to measure teachers - for the purpose of weeding out certain types, like the ones who teach humanism and democratic principles instead od test prep - is a basic tenet. Neoliberals see democracy as an alien concept. Thus schools need dictators. As do unions.

We've been connecting the UFT to the neoliberals for a generation, especially since Al Shanker signed onto it in the mid-70's when the budget cuts hit deeply into the ranks, followed by his jumping on board the Business Roundtable's "independent" study, A Nation at Risk.

Unity Caucus is trying to play this as somehow being good for teachers. "Let's have a seat at the table." Just like the UFT/AFT had at the origins of NCLB. Nice job.

James Eterno put up an informal poll on the ICE blog, How Should Teachers be Evaluated?

There have been 25 comments so far. A Unity flack is wondering why James doesn't sign up. "Try it before you criticize Unity all the time." These cloying games by Unity ignore the basic fact: They are the enemy. Of course Ed Notes and ICE and so many other teacher blogs see through the games they play.

Unity flacks and the leadership play the bait and switch game as cover for the real agenda. New UFT President Michael Mulgrew responded to a teacher:

Almost all of the "reform" ideas that are being discussed both here in NYC and nationally are ideas that are brought from people who are outside of the classroom. I felt it was imperative that we engage in research that truly looked at what happens inside of a classroom and worked with teachers as the main part of the research. It is a way that allows us to control what happens in our profession instead of waiting for those on the outside to pound us with their ideas when they have never walked in our shoes. [The full letter from the teacher and his full response is below.]

Does anyone think the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership represents what happens inside a classroom?

Mulgrew's original letter to teachers claimed the study was "being conducted by independent third-party researchers." Sure. Just like The New Teacher Project's attacks on ATRs were viewed by the NY Times as "independent" studies. I'll bet someone has a dog in the race. And I bet there's some Gates money going to flow to some elements at the UFT. I mean, where could Gates buy a better partner to peddle his junk?

Mulgrew also said:
we all recognize that the work of teachers must be measured in ways that are fair and valid. Nationally, current measures of teaching rarely take into account the full range of what teachers do (no single measure really can), or the context in which they teach. The Measures of Effective Teaching project, on the other hand, begins right in the classroom and will explore an array of teacher measures: video observations, surveys, and student growth. It will compare these measures to each other, and to nationally recognized standards, and it will look at their inter-relatedness. It will be informed by actual teacher practice.

Measured, Mike? What if we measured the performance of the UFT leadership over the past decade? What the UFT is covering for here is the concept that we need ways to measure teachers quantitatively. A major plank of the neoliberal agenda to privatize education is to quantify students and teachers. Do we see this occurring with other jobs? Police/fire/ lawyers/ doctors/politicians? Imagine saying that we will never bring down crime rates until we improve the performance of the cops? Or cut the number of fires unless we get higher quality firemen? Or win a war without better soldiers? Why not set up charter police stations and alternative military? Wouldn't the war go better if there was some competition? Shouldn't Afgans have some choice in the army they get to come into their villages? Shouldn't they be able to chose from competing organizations as to which missile get to kill their children? Come on, they need choice.

Here are a few words from the introduction to a book sent to me by former teacher Louis Bedrock: Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools by Kenneth J. Saltman:

In education, neoliberalism has taken hold with tremendous force, remaking educational common sense and pushing forward the privatization and deregulation agendas....the shift to business language and logic can be understood through the extent to which neoliberal ideals have succeeded in taking over educational debates...

The "TINA" thesis (There is No Alternative to the Market) that has come to dominate politics throughout much of the world has infected educational thought as omnipresent market terms such as accountability, choice, efficiency, competition, monopoly, and performance [outcomes] frame educational debates. Nebulous terms borrowed from the business world, such as achievement, excellence, and best practices, conceal ongoing struggles over competing values, visions, and ideological debates. (Achieve what? Excel at what? Best practices for whom? And says who?)

The only questions left on reform agendas appear to be how to best enforce knowledge and curriculum conducive to individual upward mobility within the economy [education only has the goal of preparing for jobs, not as productive citizens in a democratic society - something neoliberals really abhor] and national economic competition as it contributes to a corporately managed model of globalization as perceived from the perspective of business.

This dominant...view of education is propagated by.. Thomas Friedman...and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation...[add Broad and a horde of others.]

Saltman bases his book on Naomi Klein's "Disaster Capitalism" but focuses on education as he lays out the nuts and bolts of it in his intro and then zooms in on 3 examples: New Orleans, Iraq and Chicago. I will post more as I read more.

Now, I've said it time and again that the only force capable of organizing resistance to these attacks are the teacher unions. And they've punted.

Why does the UFT go along with the people who have been aiming the blame darts at the very people the UFT is supposed to represent? There are a few explanations, which we'll get into another time in depth. But for now I will list two reasons: 1) the UFT basically agrees with neoliberalism and 2) what I often refer to as the "Vichy mentality" - if we don't cooperate with the Nazis they will destroy all of France, especially Paris, so we cooperate with the idea of preserving what we can." I am not equating this to cooperating with Nazis, but as a way of thinking the UFT engages in. For a while they called it the New Unionism - we'll cooperate with management - or Randi's favorite word, "collaboration." Pretty interesting since collaborators in WWII got their hair sheared off - or worse.

Here is the letter from teacher (T) to Randi, who forwarded it to Mulgrew, followed by Mulgrew's response, followed by an excellent post by Marjorie Stamberg.

Randi

I was wondering why the UFT is collaborating with the Bill Gates foundation in collecting data on how to establish an effective teacher. Over the past few years all in the name of educational reform, Bill Gates has undermined public education by opening up charter schools, he even went as far as opening up charter schools in public school spaces essentially taking over the school and displacing public school teachers. So with the growing number of schools being closed and then reorganized and ATR and senior teachers being harassed, it's no wonder why a growing number of teachers are becoming disenfranchised and only see our union as a dues collecting machine.

T

There are many good reasons but I have referred your email to the new President, Michael Mulgrew. -Randi

Mulgrew response:

Thank you for sending your concerns. As you have so rightly stated public education is under attack but more importantly to me our profession is under attack. The research project that we are entering into is one that starts and ends inside of the classroom. Almost all of the "reform" ideas that are being discussed both here in NYC and nationally are ideas that are brought from people who are outside of the classroom. I felt it was imperative that we engage in research that truly looked at what happens inside of a classroom and worked with teachers as the main part of the research. It is a way that allows us to control what happens in our profession instead of waiting for those on the outside to pound us with their ideas when they have never walked in our shoes. As for the Gates foundation they are funding the project but please don't confuse them with chancellor. When Gates finished the small school project they determined that it was not a success and that curriculum and school supports were more important than a school structure which was very ethical considering that the small school movement originated with them.

Thanks again,
Michael

Marjorie Stamberg lays out the position many of us are taking:
Greasing the skids: UFT participation in a teacher evaluation studyMarjorie Stamberg to ICE-Mail listserve:

Any "teacher measurement project" funded by the Gates foundation should start ringing alarm bells. What on earth is the UFT doing participating in this "study," as UFT president Mike Mulgrew just announced?

The UFT's "participation" reminds me of the" time-motion" study guy coming to the factory assembly line, and you're asked to help him out as he measures arm movements and clocks your bathroom breaks so they can use it for speed-up. No way.

What makes an effective teacher? We do not accept the premise that individually evaluating teachers' "techniques" is relevant to improving education. The whole emphasis on "teacher evaluation", tied to students' test scores, is part of the corporatization of American education.

The UFT Teachers Center is an excellent resource that works with teachers to be more effective in the classroom. They do some excellent PD, workshops, cooperative modeling and team-teaching. This is NOT what the Gates foundation study is about.

We need good professional development, and we are committed to teachers' lifelong learning, and use of the most modern technology and methodology in the classroom. But that is very different from what is going on here.

The education "business" aims to "cut costs" in the classroom. Beginning in the 1980s, nationwide the education budget as a percentage of the GNP was sharply reduced. These corporate chiefs wanted to get more bang for their buck. This means attacks on teacher tenure, getting rid of senior teachers to drive salaries down to the level of teaching fellows. It means, not "spending time" in the classroom on enrichment activities, on general topics, reading, discussion that goes anywhere except how to pass standardized tests so kids can be useful for the employers. Now, it means the proliferation of charter schools which by getting rid of union contracts sharply increase teacher time, and regulated salary increases.

How do you "measure" a good science teacher? I've seen superb science teachers teaching high school kids in the Bronx, without a science lab, without the most minimal equipment, standing up on a chair in the hallway and dropping a ball to demonstrate gravity! If you want to measure what makes a good science teacher, how about giving him or her a decent science lab and then comparing the results before and after? If you want to help kids learn, have decent equipment in every high school, smart boards in every classroom, give every student access to computers that don't belong in a junkyards.

Coming from Mike Mulgrew, as with Randi, this offer to "collaborate" on a "teacher measurement" paid survey is typical of how they now operate. Instead of just saying "no", and opposing something outright, they cooperate with it and try to "make the best of a bad situation." Then we're stuck with the bad situation, and they say, "Well, it could have been worse."

The same thing happened when seniority transfers was given up in 2005. Instead of holding on, they traded it for a raise and the result ...... up to 2,000 teachers now in the Absent Teacher Reserve.

The answer is a union leadership that demands massive new investment in school facilities, training, and resources. Can't do it because of the economic crisis? Wrong, this is exactly when they ought to be investing. They find trillions to "rescue" the banks. Right now, a quarter of NYC schools don't have gyms, and 70 percent don't meet state requirements for hours of physical education' Of all schools in the Bronx, 22 percent don't have outdoor physical education activities at all?

Where are the art and music teachers? In the ATR pool or on the unemployment line.

Related
The Labor Notes article on organizing charters in Chicago posted on Norms Notes.

Ed Notes Foundation to Fund Microsoft Reform

The Ed Notes multi-billion dollar foundation has announced a software reform movement with the aim of getting Bill Gates' Microsoft corporation to produce software that won't cause your computer to want to pack its bags and head off to Australia.


"Since Microsoft resists the expansion of competitive operating systems, browsers and other software that would lead to higher quality products and Microsoft monopolists resist measuring and rewarding effectiveness, this is a long overdue reform effort," said Ed Notes spokes animal Pinky, the cat.


Ed Notes spokes animal, Pinky

"In fact evidence shows no connection between the quality of Microsoft software and most of the measures used to determine the pay of its employees, who appear to be compensated by the length of computer code they write, rather than how well it works. The quality and superiority of software from companies like Apple -- these all are mostly irrelevant to the market place, with Microsoft using ruthless tactics like sending blue screens of death that have been one of the leading causes of computer suicides."

New measures of measuring the effectiveness of Microsoft's software engineers will be implemented. One purpose of measurement would be to deploy the best software writers to the neediest departments of Microsoft, and pay them accordingly; another, to fire the worst. "But the main point," Pinky said, "is that effective software engineering can be taught: The biggest part is taking the people who want to be good -- and helping them."

See Norms Notes Bill Gates is as Ignorant as Bill Maher

Related: The Bill Gates Joke Page

A Fatal Exception Has Occurred

...and it's Bill Gates, who is even dumber about education than Nicholas Kristof

NYC Educator points out in his inimical way

Mr. Gates Unleashes the Parasites

Excerpt:

It's nice to have billionaires, whose kids wouldn't attend public schools on a bet, running around stating what they think should be done about public education. Gates, of course, has no idea why the Nassau schools five minutes away from NYC do as well as KIPP without union-busting, or kids and teachers working preposterously long weeks. I could tell him, if he weren't already so in love with Jay Matthews. In fact, he thrilled the audience by giving them free copies of Matthews' book about KIPP.

Personally, I heard nothing new or surprising from Gates. His description of the KIPP classroom sounded like no big deal at all. I've watched his "reforms" in action, and aside from much-enhanced PR and larger-scale rigging of stats, there's just not a whole lot to jump up and down about. We can do better for our kids, and it's unfortunate that their futures are, to whatever extent, in the hands of ignorant galoots like Bill Gates.

If Microsoft and its lousy multiple try software with all the glitches were tested the way Gates wants to test kids and rate teachers, we would have a much more virus free world and no blue screens of death (you've got to see this video of the BSoD with Gates standing there and a great Sun commercial).

This Gates guy really has some nerve. Yet money talks and he now controls a serious number of schools. I bet there is some quid quo pro on using Microsoft products in many systems. Someone should start scratching around Gates supported schools in NYC and checked just how much money flowed to Microsoft products from these schools.

Send a message to Obama about the need for smaller classes now!

Posted at:
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2008/12/send-message-to-obama-about-need-for.html

But worth repeating in full. Note mention of Andrew Rotherham: Instead of class size reduction Andy "wants to require that this critical funding be spent on more experimental and controversial programs, that are supposedly 'high leverage' – like teacher performance pay and Teach for America." Yep, that's Andy. Let's throw anything that smells of market-based ideology against the wall and see if it sticks (don't worry, it won't.)


Obama’s transition team has a website, with proposals for his administration to consider that were suggested by members of the public.

Please, go now and vote for smaller classes -- you can also leave a comment on the website. According to his transition team, "the top 10 ideas are going to be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day and will be supported by a national lobbying campaign run by Change.org, MySpace, more than a dozen leading nonprofits after the Inauguration. So each idea has a real chance at becoming policy.”

The first round of voting to determine the top three ideas in each category will end tomorrow, December 31 – so there isn’t much time! Why is this important?

Recently, there has been an unprecedented attack on class size reduction at the national level by policymakers, bloggers, business leaders and foundations, despite the fact that smaller classes are one of the few education reforms that have been proven to work, according to the research arm of the US Dept. of Education, and that also have widespread support among parents and educators.

In a recent report, Andrew Rotherham, an influential inside-the-beltway blogger, has proposed that school districts no longer be able to use their federal Title II education funds for this purpose – despite the fact that about half of all districts currently invest these funds in smaller classes. Instead, he wants to require that this critical funding be spent on more experimental and controversial programs, that are supposedly “high leverage” – like teacher performance pay and Teach for America.

In support of his opposition to class size reduction, he cites not a single research study (because none exists) but an oped published in the Daily News last year, written by Robert Gordon, a consultant employed by Joel Klein and another inside-the-beltway policy wonk, who trashed public school parents for their “class size obsession”.

Like Joel Klein and Jim Liebman, Gordon is an attorney with no experience as an educator or researcher. Yet both Rotherham and Gordon are being promoted by the charter school privatization and testing crowd to receive top-level appointments in an Obama administration.

Their attacks on class size have been joined in recent opeds by conservative commentator, David Brooks of the NY Times, who wrote that small classes were a “superficial” reform, compared to “merit pay for good teachers, charter schools and tough accountability standards”, and Lou Gerstner, former head of IBM, who baldly stated in the Wall St. Journal that class size “does not matter” and is pushing for the abolition of all school districts (along with more merit pay and testing.)

The most powerful man in education circles today, Bill Gates, who intends to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the newest flavors of the week, including -- you guessed it -- more charter schools, testing, and merit pay, recently joined in on the chorus, attacking class size reduction in a prominent speech,

So vote for smaller classes here, if you would like Obama to consider supporting class size reduction and more school construction. Help him resist the loud but clueless voices of the DC education policy establishment.

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/class_size_reduction_in_our_public_schools

Please forward this message to others who care, and Happy New Year.

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters

The New Know Nothings

I just heard Jonathan Alter rant against teacher unions on Don Imus while praising Bill Gates as a reformer. Alter joins David Brooks, another education Know Nothing in pushing the Joel Klein/Michelle Rhee/Arne Duncan model of "it's all the teachers and their unions fault" model of school reform. Brooks recently wrote his second column pushing his vacant ideas on education.

What's interesting about these Know Nothings is how they refuse to look at places where the anti-union market based "reforms" have had little impact. Arne Duncan brags about how he fired the teachers at low performing schools. How has the Chicago model worked out? (See my recent column about how PS 225 in Rockaway had most of the teachers dumped out in March 2005 and is now being closed.) As a matter of fact, the refusal to look at the record of Chicago 13 years after mayoral control began and where George Schmidt reports the union has been rendered just about helpless, is a major plank in the Know Nothing platform.

Another plank is the refusal to look at all the right to work states where unions barely exist and how education is working out in those places.

Alter never mentions Gates' recent turn around on his support of small schools, a movement that has decimated and de-stabilized so many schools in New York City. Ooops! Let's try another experiment with no data backing it up. The irony, of course, of all these data kings never using data to judge the validity of their "reforms," would be delicious if it wasn't so destructive.

The rants ignore the significant voices of vocal parents in New York who have actually made a firmer stand against BloomKlein than the UFT.

I put a lot of blame for how this is being played out squarely on the teacher unions, who could of/should of been fighting for the kind of education reforms that would work. But they abandoned that fight a generation ago. We expect people like Gates, Alter, Brooks, Klein, etc. to act the way they do. But when the rank and file have to fight a two-front war, their situation is very bad indeed.

As we full well know, the UFT has barely made a stand at all. I won't go into the gory details. You see, the UFT/AFT wants to play "me too – see, we are also reformers." No, not the kind of reformers who call for low class sizes and offering urban kids the same kind of education wealthy kids get. But merit pay, ending union work rules, support for the testing mantra (though making squeaks about how much they are opposed.)

The tragedy is that our union leaders are not Know Nothings. They actually know something about how schools work but have decided to play the political game with the union attackers. "We'll give you some of what you want now and sell it to the members while leaving you loop-holes to get the rest. We will then put on a big act for the members about how awful this is but shrug our shoulders with a 'what can we do' attitude." The key issue: hold on to power.

They want to be a partner with the business community and have a seat at the table. Except for the extreme right wing union attackers, the reformers are perfectly happy to have a UFT/AFT on board as their intermediaries in selling their platform from the inside. The union leaders will get dues no matter what happens to the teachers. And most importantly, they will remain in power.

If a reform movement within the UFT ever got started and attracted masses of rank and filers, watch how quickly the gang running the schools line up with Unity Caucus to keep militants away from union power.

Related
Greg Palast had a great post at Huffington which I posted at Norms Notes. Is the real Gates interest to make sure poor kids are educated in a narrow, test-driven school he would never send his own kids to so he can assure enough data entry clerks?

Is Obama Getting Bad Advice on His Appointments?

Joel Klein is being considered for secretary of education, which would make as much sense for our schools as Michael Brown did for disaster relief.

Has Barack Obama forgotten, Michael "Way to go, Brownie" Brown? Brown was that guy from the Arabian Horse Association appointed by President George W. Bush to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Brownie, not knowing the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain from the south end of a horse, let New Orleans drown. Bush's response was to give his buddy Brownie a thumbs up.

We thought Obama would go a very different way. You'd think the studious senator from Illinois would avoid repeating the Bush regime's horror show of unqualified appointments, of picking politicos over professionals. But here we go again. Trial balloons lofted in the Washington Post suggest President-elect Obama is about to select Joel Klein as secretary of education. If not Klein, then draft choice No. 2 is Arne Duncan, Obama's backyard basketball buddy in Chicago.

It's not just Klein's and Duncan's empty credentials that scare me: It's the ill philosophy behind the Bush-brand education theories they promote. "Teach-to-the-test" (which goes under such prepackaged teaching brands as "Success for All") forces teachers to limit classroom time to pounding in rote, low-end skills, easily measured on standardized tests. The transparent purpose is to create the future class of worker-drones. Add in some computer training and -- voila! -- millions trained on the cheap to function, not think. Analytical thinking skills, creative skills, questioning skills will be left to the privileged at the Laboratory School and Phillips Andover Academy.

Alphie Kohn has a piece in The Nation which I also posted at Norms Notes.

Beware School 'Reformers'

For Republicans education "reform" typically includes support for vouchers and other forms of privatization. But groups with names like Democrats for Education Reform--along with many mainstream publications--are disconcertingly allied with conservatives in just about every other respect.

Sadly, all but one of the people reportedly being considered for Education secretary are reformers only in this Orwellian sense of the word.

Duncan and Klein, along with virulently antiprogressive DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, are celebrated by politicians and pundits. Darling-Hammond, meanwhile, tends to be the choice of people who understand how children learn. Consider her wry comment that introduces this article: it's impossible to imagine a comparable insight coming from any of the spreadsheet-oriented, pump-up-the-scores "reformers" (or, for that matter, from any previous Education secretary). Darling-Hammond knows how all the talk of "rigor" and "raising the bar" has produced sterile, scripted curriculums that have been imposed disproportionately on children of color. Her viewpoint is that of an educator, not a corporate manager.

Imagine--an educator running the Education Department.

For more research-based pieces, check Leonie Haimson's consistent defense of reforms that will work at the NYC Public Parents blog. Leonie's stake is that she has a child in the NYC schools. In this piece Leonie punches holes in the entire Bill Gates rationale.

No evidence of improved outcomes at NYC's small schools

And of course the work done by Eduwonkette to debunk the Know Nothings. And then there's the ongoing discussion between Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch at Bridging Differences.

You see, the new Know Nothings want to know nothing about all this evidence of opposition that goes way beyond teachers.

Previous Ed Notes articles on another David Brooks column in July.

David Brooks and the Status Quo at the NY Times

Responding to David Brooks

Michael Fiorillo Challenges David Brooks

Joel Klein's Perfomance: Leonie and I on WBAI this Morning

UPDATE: David B. extracted just the portion of the program with Leonie and I.



The WBAI full program segment:
http://archive.wbai.org/files/mp3/081113_070001wuc.MP3

Our segment starts at 40:43 after Miriam Makeba sings.

I think I said that Klein persecuted (instead of prosecuted) Bill Gates during the anti-trust case. The host made the interesting point that Klein did not enforce anti-trust laws much beyond Microsoft. He went for the one case that would make him look good. Why are we not surprised?

WBAI may be doing something tonight around 7:30 or 8 on the same subject. I don't know who the guests are.

It's pretty interesting the ride this is being given.

At yesterday's UFT delegate assembly there was also a discussion and a resolution. The ICE attempt to amend it to expand things beyond Klein to the genre he represents was turned down.

Good work Lisa North and Michael Fiorillo in making some important points. While we focus on Klein, the idea that Michelle Rhee would also not be objectionable should also be raised. How long before Washington parents and teachers start their own petitions? I guess she has to be there longer than a year to alienate everyone, but she's doing even better than Klein at that.

Here is the text of what we handed out.

No Klein Or His Ilk In Obama Ed Dept.

ICE congratulates everyone who worked so hard to have Barack Obama elected US President. The multitudes of teachers who donated and worked for Obama expect that we will be respected by an Obama administration. We have suffered through a quarter century of teacher bashing in this country since the infamous A Nation at Risk was published. First, there was competency testing of teachers (supported by Hillary Clinton incidentally). Then, the one-way accountability system was introduced that blamed teachers for all of the social ills of the country. This led to the high-stakes testing movement which combined with Mayoral dictatorships over schools in many of our large cities. Blaming teachers became an acceptable form of discrimination. ICE states emphatically: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF TEACHING BASHING IS ENOUGH! We must send real educators to Washington who will support an education policy that respects our work. ICE would like to see the following motion added to the agenda today:

Resolved, that the UFT will work to see that the Secretary and Under-secretary of Education share our values and we will toil to defeat any nominee such as Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Paul Vallas or any other potential Secretary of Education who supports corporate style, top-down, high stakes test crazed, teacher bashing accountability.

Emily LaGates Says - "Never Mind!"

It's really worth noting what was happening in Seattle at the Gates Foundation shindig where reporter extraordinaire Elizabeth Green gives us the full scoop. An awful lot of what Gates had to say was pure poop.

He said that while the investments created some noteworthy successes, which he said proved an important lesson — “that all students can succeed” — the overall goal of scaling up successful models was a disappointment.

“Largely, this has not happened,” he said.

Many of the 8% of schools did not succeed: Their test scores were actually lower than the average scores of schools in their school district, and their college-attending rates climbed painfully slowly, up only 2.5 percentage points over five years. A main strategy of the schools, breaking large high schools into smaller units, on its own guaranteed no overall success, Gates said.

He said the New York City small schools were an example of successes in raising high school graduation rates — but a disappointment in that their graduates were no likelier than any city student to be prepared to go onto college.

Ya mean Bill that you helped destroy entire swaths of the NYC school system and now it's "Never Mind?" Oops!

Green goes on:

Perhaps the most sensitive project will be investments to study a seemingly innocuous subject: teacher effectiveness. The touchy part is that the foundation is signaling that it will urge school districts to find ways to fire teachers judged ineffective.

“If their students keep falling behind, they’re in the wrong line of work, and they need to move on,” Bill Gates...

Following this same line of reasoning, Gates will soon announce he is closing down Microsoft for foisting the Windows Operating system on the world despite it's being a vastly inferior product to the Apple Macintosh OS. "If we keep falling behind Apple, we're in the wrong line of work and need to move on," Gates said. Microsoft will produce hair brushes from now on.

New Microsoft line of products

Skoolboy over at Eduwonkette laughed uncontrollably - Bill Gates, U.S. Superintendent of Schools at this line from Green's report

As part of its new approach, the Gates Foundation will advocate for the politically thorny goal of national standards — and will aim to write its own standards and its own national test.

I have an idea for a national standard:

Ability to use Windows computers and all Microsoft products to the exclusion of anything resembling Apples, even if they want to serve them for lunch.

(Sidenote: I was in NYC school tech when BloomKlein took over. Think there was any favoritism towards Microsoft, which made millions?)

Skoolboy says, "Read it again, slowly: The Gates Foundation will develop its own national standards and its own national test. Does anybody else think this is a really, really bad idea? I'm delighted that the Gates Foundation has realized that throwing money at small schools didn't work, but I'm not prepared to turn over the public's interest in what is to be taught and learned to a private philanthropy, no matter how civic-minded it may be.

Hey Skoolboy, isn't Bill Gates allowed to make a few mistakes? Check out this idiot comment from CodyPT:

How do you manage to pass judgement so quickly when you haven't read the first syllable of the Gates Foundation effort? It's the same old story. No one outside the hallowed confines of the educational "establishment" is allowed to put an oar into the education lake (puddle?) without immediate howling from the education "experts."

Ah, yes CodyPT. What we need are non-experts. I hope you get one of those the next time you go to a doctor

Mike Klonsky also has some thoughts- Gates' unveils '3 pillars' and here on the subject.