Real School Reform From Deb Meier and Emily Gasoi - The Answer Sheet

Far from being “defenders of the status quo,” as DeVos calls people who don’t agree with her school choice vision, Meier and Gasoi write about what real reform would and should look like and how the current system could be transformed into one that serves all children. They argue all public schools should have the kind of authority charter schools — which are publicly funded but privately operated — have in many states today.... Valerie Strauss

Deb Meier one of my heroes since I first heard of her in the 70s. WAPO ed columnist Valerie Strauss has been on the side of real reform for a long time.

Answer Sheet

Analysis 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/12/14/heres-a-model-for-major-school-reform-that-looks-vastly-different-from-betsy-devoss-vision/?utm_term=.e6901a1c9414 

Here’s a model for major school reform that looks vastly different from Betsy DeVos’s vision

By Valerie Strauss December 14, 2017

Deb Meier, Jane Andrias, Two Former CPE1 Principals Question Farina/DOE on Intentional Destruction

While Meier soared, Farina soured --- into a Joel Klein flunky.

Does Farina hate Deb Meier for her success and national and international recognition over the same time period Farina was an active educator and yet Farina never received similar accolades?

Or is it just that Farina can't stand the idea of democratic governance of a school? Then we hear that Farina knows full well how awful Monika Garg is but hates the parent activists so much she believes they (and their kids) must not be allowed to get away with winning this and must be punished. After all, what if other parent groups spring up?

Even if Farina goes out on a legacy of forcing most of the parents out of CPE1 and turns it into a charter clone, those parents who remain in the public school system at other schools around the city may just bring their level of activism along with them.

Unless the unstated intent of the recent failure to end the turmoil of these past few years has been to close CPE1 so the space could be used for other purposes, it’s clear that we now face a choice between either replacing the principal or replacing the students, families and the school’s mission. ... Jane Andrias, Deb Meier, former Principals of CPE 1

Unless you understand the unique culture of democratic decision-making at CPE1 over 40 years, the attack on the school by Farina and henchcrew seems to fall into the usual DOE attempts to drive out vet teachers. But there is something different going on here - it is the style of education at the school that is under attack. And maybe something personal.

This comment was left on the Diane Ravitch blog when she posted a link to Unsafe at Any Speed at CPE 1:

Jane Andrias

April 24, 2017 at 7:45 am

Deborah Meier has been having difficulty with her vision and is now dependent on voice activated devices for reading and writing. As a result an earlierresponse to the blog was incomplete.

In early April, Deborah and I wrote a response to Kate Taylor’s article in the NY Times on the conflict at Central Park East 1 (“CPE1”). The letter was not published. Taylor’s article raised many of the right questions confronting the institution but failed to explore why there has been no constructive solution to address the continuing conflicts within the school community and restore the safe and supportive learning environment for children and adults, which had been the hallmark of the school.

CPE1 was founded in 1974 as part of an East Harlem initiative to show what could be possible in what was at that time one of the poorest and educationally deprived communities in the city. The then District Superintendent, Anthony Alvarado, invited us to start a small, progressive and democratically governed school. Over the ensuing 30 years the school developed a national and international reputation for success in educating its children while maintaining a democratic culture. Faculty, staff, families and children all felt respected and heard even in times when internal differences or external policy changes challenged the integrity of the school’s core beliefs and highly developed practice. All important decisions were made collectively. One of the most notable features was the relationships that developed among staff, families and children, many of which last to this day. This continued and flourished long after Deborah left the school in 1985 under the leadership of the two principals who succeeded her.

While many of the attributes of the school have been threatened over the last decade, a third principal, who was the choice of the school community, succeeded in supporting the school culture and mission until she left to form her new school based on the principles and practices of CPE1.

The next principal who followed was also recommended by the school community but was not a strong enough leader to sustain and build on the mission of the school and the school began to erode. Three tenured teachers left the school at the end of her last year. Monika Garg was then appointed as the principal without the input or support of the school community. During the past two years with Ms. Garg as principal, the school’s mission has been totally undermined. Three more tenured teachers and one promising new teacher left the school at the end of last year.

A community that was once built on trust, compassion, the power of ideas and democratic process of decision making has become too distracted by controversy to function as a united and safe learning community for children and adults alike. Unless the unstated intent of the recent failure to end the turmoil of these past few years has been to close CPE1 so the space could be used for other purposes, it’s clear that we now face a choice between either replacing the principal or replacing the students, families and the school’s mission. We have made efforts over the past two years to join with the DOE to identify leadership that would build on the foundation of the past and restore the school’s excellent educational and democratic principles and culture. We are disappointed by the resistance of the DOE to take the necessary steps to constructively resolve this unrelenting and destructive conflict at CPE1.

Deborah Meier-1974-85-Founding Teacher/ Director, MacCarthur Award Winner
Jane Andrias-1981-2003 Art Teacher and Principal

@SOS12 Videos: Deb Meier, Jonathan Kozol, Nancy Carlsson-Paige

I'm so busy processing videos I haven't had time to blog about the fab 2 days at SOS2012 in DC this past weekend, a great followup to my 5 day trip to the AFT convention in Detroit last weekend. Lots of bloggers were there so in my next post I'll put up links and some commentary. Here are 2 keynotes. How thrilled was I when Nancy Carlsson-Paige (who is so accomplished but always seems to have her name attached to the fact she is Matt Damon's mom ---- and yes I did it too) told me how good "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" was. (You know I am embarassed by the poor producation stuff I was so often responsible for so having someone like Nancy who is connected to the film industry say that means a lot.)

And being at any event with the great Debbie Meier is always such a treat. (My battery ran out during her funny and insightful keynote but here is what I got.


SOS12 Debbie Meier Keynote
------------------

https://vimeo.com/47010658


SOS12 Jonathan Kozol Keynote from Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/47017912



 Being away has its disadvantages.
 My wife and her pal Shelly have conspired to bring in a new homeless kitten which Shelly has been feeding in her back yard -- they are at the vet now. I know Shelly's husband Joel is behing this, getting even with me for convincing him to take in a cat he doesn't like 15 years ago. Just wait Joel, I'm sending every stray to your yard with a personal note from me.


======
The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Videos: FairTest Honors Diane Ravitch with the Deborah W. Meier Hero in Education Award, June 7, 2012

 Ravitch and Meier and Monty Neill plus Weingarten and Mulgrew in the same space, Plus lots of super attendees. So far the ed social event of the season for me.

Love was in the air to such an extent at this event, I even gave Randi Weingarten a hug. And smiled at Mulgrew. After all, being in the same space with Debbie Meier and Diane Ravitch is a very special occasion, especially as it was a fundraiser for a worthy organization. You know I just found buried in my archives a book by Debbie that I was reading around 1971 when I gave up my dream of an open classroom in frustration. I have followed her career since then but only got to meet her 5 years ago.

FAIR TEST has been leading the battle against high stakes tests for a quarter of a century and  its director Monty Neill has been a major voice in the struggle, which if you have been following this blog you know has been heating up (Police Estimate 400 at Pearson Field Test Protest). It was the best $75 I've spent in a long time.

It was just a few short hours before we found out Walker had won in Wisconsin. And though I think that big labor bears part of the responsibility, the evening of good feeling transcended it all. Feeling a great deal of labor solidarity I had a brief but nice chat with Randi.




The entire video is worth an hour of your time and you can watch it at https://vimeo.com/43587373.

I also cut it into 4 chunks for those short on time.

I'm embedding this 19 minutes piece when Deb and Diane did a version of their Edweek (Bridging Differences) blog to end the evening. Just priceless stuff.

Meier and Ravitch in Conversation

https://vimeo.com/43759101

FairTest Award - Meier and Ravitch in Conversation from Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.

Here are other segments:

Deborah Meier Introduces Diane Ravitch
https://vimeo.com/43747985
Diane Ravitch Acceptance Speech
https://vimeo.com/43748488
And in this segment I collated all the other speakers:
Michael Mulgrew, Ann Cook, Monty Neill, Randi Weingarten
https://vimeo.com/43759471

The battle against high stakes tests has been in the forefront of Ed Notes from way back to our print publishing beginnings in 1996 when I was still working at a school that had been led since 1979 by a test/data driven principal (yes, even in those days) and I saw first hand what that did to deform education as the ability of teachers to control what they taught was being taken out of their hands. Thus, the issue was a key when ICE, followed by GEM were formed. The GEM committee, Change the Stakes, which began as a teacher dominated group has shifted into much of a parent/teacher group, with the sensibilities of both points of view making it stronger. Of course many teachers are also parents.

Also, on June 7, the afternoon of the Pearson rally, the education committee of MORE, the new caucus in town, held a great session on chapters 8 and 9 of Ravitch's book, with a depth of analysis that delved into what Ravitch left out and what she nailed with an intellectual rigor I haven't experienced in a while. In the room were some new teachers and some veteran ICE people, along with some NYCORE and GEM. Quite a mix -- the next meeting is June 21 (which I can't attend because we are having a party in honor of my dad where we will serve samples all of his favorite foods -- and have a barf bag ready just in case).

One major group we have to convince to get involved are the very people we work with. Organized, teachers can fight back against this testing mania and while the UFT/AFT make noises, they do nothing at the school level to get some pushback --- like how about getting a movement going to boycott some of the crap teachers have to do that has little relation to the children -- the waste of time monitoring crap?

Wild Day: Deb Meier, Meeting Nancy Carlson Paige, A 3020a Hearing, Hanging With Peter Pan

Yesterday is so far away but I've got to get it all down before it fades.

We started working on our new film, working title, "High Stakes Testing: The Inconvenient Truth" and I had to race into the city early in order to catch up with one of my heroes, Deb Meier for an interview. I won't give you the entire history but I tried an open classroom for parts of 2 years (1970-72) and it was somewhat of a disaster. I heard of an amazing teacher who was doing wonderful work and always wanted to meet her but didn't actually do that until about 5 years ago. Deb's blogging with Diane Ravitch, two people who at one time were coming at things from opposite directions, has given vitality to the battle against ed deformers and their influence has made them giants. Talk to Deb and you get a wonderful sensibility about children and how they learn. Deb's latest post to Diane is: 'Soft Science' & Less Certainty

Deb was in town for the day for a meeting at a CUNY building on 31st St. We had to find a spot for the interview and it was so noisy we went up the meeting to look for a space. The first person to greet us was Nancy Carlson Paige, a noted educator battling ed deform, who got some great publicity when she and brought her son Matt Damon to SOS in Washington last July. Deb introduced me to her as one of the people who made TITBWFS and I was walking on air the rest of the day after Nancy started telling people how much she liked it. I called Julie afterwards to tell her. Her response: "you should have gotten an interview with Nancy." I thought of it but she was anxious to get the meeting going and I'm just too shy to ask but having her in our film would have been great.

As the mother of a major actor, she did give my flimsy equipment a look but Deb and I found an office for the 10 minute interview. Just listening to her energizes me. Here is the link: http://youtu.be/owi2SKa4EA. 

Or watch it here.



I may have an interview with Diane Ravitch next week. Now all I have to do is lure Susan Ohanian away from Vermont.

 
3020a
After that I headed over to B&H for some fun shopping and I blew a load. My wife was meeting me at 2PM for a matinee and I had a few hours so I headed downtown for the first day of a 3020a hearing (I'm heading  back today.) It is absolutely astounding to attend one of these where the teacher is clearly an excellent teacher by every possible judgement but is being persecuted for a statement in facebook. Whether that was good or bad judgement, the DOE lawyer objected to every possible piece of evidence that show what a good teacher she is by saying, "Irrelevant. We are only interested in the facebook incident." Proof that the DOE is willing to waste thousands of dollars to fire what even they would acknowledge is a good teacher. Another wrinkle is that she is African-American and the 3rd African-American woman the principal has gone after: the real civil rights issue of our time.

The room was packed with supporters and even students who supported the teacher, including Christine Rubio who was fired for facebook comments but won her case in court.
You can read more about the case at The Assailed Teacher: The Joke of 3020a
"The process has become so biased that real courts of law are overturning more 3020a decisions than ever before. It happened in the case of Christine Rubino, whose case Betsy Combier describes in her latest post." Betsy is always there for people and has a lot of fans.

I fear that the persecution of teachers will lead to the loss of people like Assailed Teacher: read the collateral damage in this post: Teacher in Crisis.

I have notes and will try to do a longer piece tonight.

---------
The lunch break came just in time for me to make the matinee "Peter and the Star Catcher" an absolutely hysterical prequel to Peter Pan. The best line from the future Captain Hook: You made your bed, Pan.

Then is was off to 5Napkin Burger on 9th Ave (I needed 6 napkins to coral that burger.) After dinner I had the option to head over to CUNY for the Change the Stakes meeting where parents are discussing opting out of the test: check the great GEM blog that covers this issue.
Change the Stakes | Take a Stand Against High Stakes Testing: Our Children Are More Than Test Scores!

But this old guy had enough for the day.

Deborah and Diane

Check out this wonderful piece by Diane Ravitch addressed to Deb Meier at their blog.

Did We Bridge Our Differences?

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2010/11/did_we_bridge_our_differences.html

Deb was a hero of mine from my early days as a teacher as I experimented with an open classroom. I wanted to check out her work in the early 70's but never got to do it. I only got to meet her at a symposium at NYU on the Shanker bio in Sept. 2007. Diane was also on that panel (interesting that it was Shanker who introduced Diane and Deb in the 80's). I had been introduced to Diane by Leonie at the big St. Vartas church rally in Feb. 2007. I was taken aback since I had heard she was on the other side.

While I was not too aware of Diane as a controversial figure, my friends in the anti-testing community had viewed Diane Ravitch as being in the enemy camp. Indeed, when I posted that she was to receive the John Dewey Award at a UFT Spring conference I received an email from the late Jerry Bracey asking if we were going to picket.

Now, of course, Diane has become a major hero for so many teachers. But Deb as part of this remarkable blogging duo has also maintained her status as a major progressive educator. (Diane's post touches on many of the issues that divided them but I will comment in a follow-up to this post.)

Interesting that it took watching many of her ideas put into effect and distorted for Diane to see where things could lead, while people like Deb could see it coming from the classroom perspective years before.

I know so many teachers that Diane has reached out to and they have been thrilled to hear from her.
One thing I noticed as I read the introduction to Diane's book and how she saw the light: I knew that stuff 30 years ago from seeing the impact of high stakes testing on my school, my students and my colleagues. How does such a smart lady miss that? But she answers that as looking from an airplane can distort things. Diane deserves credit for seeing that research alone isn't enough but day-to-day teacher experience - the much maligned anecdotal - are never to be discounted.

Yes, I am from the "Don' need no stinkin' research school."

______________

Also read Diane's great review of Waiting for Superman:

The Myth of Charter Schools

___________________

Don't forget to check out tonight's radio show (unfortunately I have rehearsals for The Odd Couple). I hope you heard last week's show with Leonie. Both Arthur Goldstein and Diane Ravitch called in. Congrats to South Bronx Teacher who has gone from totally snarky to a major force in the anti-ed deform blogging and now radio world, while maintaining his humor and snarkiness. His continued growth and influence has been a pleasure to watch.

Fidgety Teach will be guest on South Bronx teacher radiocast Tuesday night at 9pm

She is Rubber Room inmate and now in purgatory at Court St. due to the vindictiveness of Kristine Mustillio.

Fidgety is a menschette.

The story about what was done is here:

http://southbronxschool.blogspot.com/2010/10/very-special-internet-radiocast.html

The link to the radio show is here:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bronx-teacher/2010/11/03/the-mind-of-the-bronx-teacher


http://southbronxschool.blogspot.com

Deb Meier on Teacher Unions and KIPP

From The Nation

TEACHERS' UNION

I'm rarely cheerful these days about matters that relate to schooling in America. But the decision by teachers at a KIPP NYC school to join the United Federation of Teachers, joining two other KIPP schools where the teachers are already union members, lifted my spirits. As the favorite flavor of school reform these days, KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) is perhaps the fastest-growing charter school network in the country. The organization of KIPP, which some schools are resisting, suggests that even those teachers attracted to "boot camp" reforms can see that America's young people shouldn't be in the hands of Ivy League volunteers who dedicate a few years "in passing" to education. Precisely out of loyalty to their students and to KIPP, some have begun to see teaching as a lifetime commitment that requires teachers' voices to be heard. A young KIPP teacher told me that he and his colleagues were looking to revise some aspects of the KIPP model as they became more experienced.

The organization of KIPP teachers refutes those who relentlessly and falsely suggest that unionism is a crutch only for weak teachers, or that without collective bargaining we'd easily produce good schooling for one and all. In some fifteen Southern states, teachers are denied the right to collective bargaining--and those states are among the lowest educational performers in the nation. What these KIPP teachers are telling us is that the best schools, regardless of their pedagogical philosophies, are those in which powerful and unafraid adults join the young to create powerful and unafraid schools.

DEBORAH MEIER

Klonsky and Meier on Arne Duncan

From Susan Ohanian

Obama’s Choice for Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, Seen as Compromise Between Divided Strands

by Mike Klonsky and Deborah Meier

Democracy Now
2008-12-18

http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=8375

Susan says:
There is a lot of game-playing and positioning in this discussion. Is Mike Klonsky keeping his options open, or what? Duncan as a "centrist" candidate when he says?

I think Arne Duncan has the potential to be a good Secretary of Education, and I
think he has some real positives going for him.

Read Henry Giroux and Kenneth Saltman on Duncan's corporate brand of schooling and Obama's betrayal of public schools.


After reading Susan's comments I took a good look at what Deb Meier said. Read it all but here are just a few words and though I think she is being careful, she makes some important points:

So, first of all, I think we’re—it’s not two sides. It’s sort of a—it’s different views about the purpose of education, and there are different views about how human beings learn well. And I think there’s a very predominant view right now that gets—has been called by the name of reform and that has nothing to do with red and blue. It’s a kind of market view of education, though. And I
think there are a lot of people on the red side who are more close to my views and a lot of people of the blue side who are more close to Arne Duncan’s views. And that part does worry me, maybe even more than it does Klonsky, my friend Mike Klonsky, because it’s—I think we need a different discussion about what the point of education is.

[O]nce you’ve posed the issue as being union lackeys or reformers—and the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, a variety of magazines, as you mentioned earlier, have said there are two sides: unions lackeys, people who want to—who are worrying—you know, who are dependent upon the union, and on the other side are real reformers. I think it made it hard for the union to speak for its own membership on this question. And the history of reform has almost nothing to do—I shouldn’t say that. There has always been a struggle between these two wings in reform. But they have posed me as an anti-reformer, as though there are—since I’m not for market-style reforms, this testing mania, this narrow focus on prepping kids for a small selection of skills, that makes me a dupe of the union and an anti-reformer and someone who doesn’t care for the future of the economy or democracy. I think it’s been posed that way for so many years now.

Deborah Meier Nails What Teaching Is All About

Thursday's final forum of the year featured legendary educator Deborah Meier whose every word resonated with the audience, which was large and enthusiastic. From union democracy - yes, great teachers see more importance in unions than getting merit pay - to the lessons of the classroom to being active as a teacher - if you are too afraid to stand up against teaching lies, can you maintain your integrity as a teacher - she covered so much. And her relationship with Diane Ravitch too. I was mesmerized as she articulated so much of how I viewed teaching but have found it hard to express. A true kindred spirit who I hoped to meet up with as a young teacher but never connected with her.

We broke everyone - veteran teachers, new teachers, people studying to be teachers, etc. into groups and the discussions were wonderful. I taped as much of these as I could in addition to Deborah's presentation and will get this inspiring stuff up soon. Deborah left us with a vision of hope in these despairing educational times. So keep an eye out.