Learning From Lois (Weiner): Social Justice Unions, Restorative Justice, and Caucus Building

Lois talked about how Restorative Justice can only work in a democratically run, collaborative school environment with a non-abusive, instead of a top-down principal.  ... AMEN

I was at Lois Weiner's very interesting presentation last night, Urban Education & Teacher Unionism Policy Project. MORE co-sponsored it.

This is an exciting venture that, in addition to the goals listed below, will also focus on the various movements within unions rather than the current leaderships. As Lois pointed out, many of these movements like MORE and WE in Philly were inspired by CORE Caucus in Chicago.

Lois pointed out that forming a strong democratic caucus with a large school base is the key. She contrasted cases like Milwaukee. Bob Peterson of Rethinking Schools won election pretty much on his own without a caucus and now leads a union where people are not especially active. That is problematical - trying to build a caucus without a firm school base AFTER winning.

As Lois talked I felt she was affirming the rough strategy MORE has been following - building enough of a base of schools which in NYC with 1800 schools and a Unity machine that battles for every single one, is the biggest challenge. When people say MORE doesn't want to win they are distorting reality. MORE can't win UNTIL it establishes enough of a base to win. Why can MORE challenge in the high schools and why did New Action win the high schools for over a decade? There is enough of a base in the high schools to win.

Lois emphasized the school as the organizing tool. And she is a board member of Teachers Unite, which also emphasizes the school unit. Where I  differ somewhat is that she doesn't focus attention on building geographical clusters of schools on the district level. NYC is a special situation due to size and the massive Unity control of the schools. District level clusters of K-8 schools must be built to begin to challenge Unity in the middle and elementary schools before any caucus has a chance to win.

Lois emphasizes that the social justice component is a key to building an alliance that goes beyond narrow teacher interests, which is proving to be a dead end no matter how much people scream and yell about teacher rights. Without building a community component that supports the teachers, a hostile press will kill them. The teachers walking out in Detroit, even if unorganized, can do so because parents are not killing them for doing it. Imagine if there were gangs of people outside schools screaming at them on days when they do come to school. That hasn't happened.

For me one of the most illuminating parts of her presentation was about restorative justice, which Teachers Unite has made a key part of its operation.

MORE supports restorative justice and has come under criticism for doing so. MORE supports RJ WHERE IT CAN WORK. MORE has to make that clear.

We know that some principals use RJ as a cover - and as a way to suck up to Carmen Farina - "see, we have an RJ program" - while they screw the teachers.

I have not always been comfortable with simply saying we support RJ without qualifying the RJ language used. She talked about how RJ can only work in a democratically run, collaborative school environment with a non-abusive, top-down principal. I pointed out that there are complaints about MORE's support for RJ from people who have such principals and RJ is just used as public relations crap to put the blame on teachers. Lois pointed out that the very idea of RJ is children and teachers taking control and if a principal has total control it just doesn't work.

She made it clear. If you have an autocratic or abusive principal, fuhgetaboutit. Well we know that leaves out the majority of schools in the system and MORE should clean up its RJ platform language to make that clear. Jia Lee was present and I hope that she makes this clear when she talks about RJ which she knows would never work with her old abusive principal but works in her current school - as long as the principal is supportive. But things can turn on a dime once an ego-driven principal takes over a school that was progressive.

Lois also addressed the issue of institutional racism, a term which seems to rub some (white) people the wrong way. I will deal with this in a separate post.

One thing I would have liked to address was the special situation of Unity Caucus being able to dominate the city, state and national unions and set policy for all of them through their autocratic rule.

Here is description of the Teacher Unionism Policy Project:

The aim of the New Jersey City University's Urban Education and Teacher Unionism Policy Project is to apply research, explained in accessible language, to address those very hard issues that divide teacher unions from communities of color and support strong alliances.

Dr. Lois Weiner, Project Director of the Urban Education and Teacher Unionism Policy Project, is an internationally-known scholar in urban teacher education and teacher unionism.

This event is sponsored by the GC Urban Education Program, GC Critical Psychology Program, Public Science Project, Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies, Professional Staff Congress (PSC) Graduate Center Chapter, Teachers Unite, and the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE).

Lois Weiner and Karen Lewis on Democracy Now as Educators Push Back Against Obama’s "Business Model" for School Reforms

People have gotten to know about Karen Lewis (the winner the GEM award in the upcoming GEM newsletter). But not enough people know about Lois Weiner (see tab on her in the heading). Lois has taught us all about the neo-liberal agenda. Putting these two together is brilliant. See the video.

Here Karen takes apart Arnie (he's be arrested if he tried to teach because he is not credentialed) and because he doesn't know what to do - see her great impression of Arne - he says let someone else - the privatizers - do it.

Lois looks at the global aspect of the market based deforms. And talks about the national impact of the CORE victory in Chicago. And she gives a shout out to our pals in Teachers Unite.

Educators Push Back Against Obama’s "Business Model" for School Reforms

It’s back-to-school season. As millions of children around the country begin a new school year, the Obama administration is aggressively moving forward on a number of education initiatives, from expanding charter schools to implementing new national academic standards. We talk to Karen Lewis, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, and Lois Weiner, a professor of education at New Jersey City University. [includes rush transcript]

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/3/educators_push_back_against_obamas_business

See transcript at Norms Notes.  Lois Weiner and Karen Lewis Democracy Now Transcript

Lois Weiner: What's right - and wrong - in Diane Ravitch's new take on school reform

I could subtitle this piece, "It's neo-liberalism, stupid." We have long noted how the UFT/AFT disguises the ed deform attack on public education as being personality driven or due to local events. Rhee is bad. Klein is incompetent. Detroit has nothing to do with Washington DC or NYC. Sure, Michelle Rhee was not sent into DC as an advanced guard to set an example that could be used nationwide. For the 91 percenters who think Mulgrew is different, watch the UFT/AFT delegates performance at the convention in Seattle this July. GEM will have people there to take notes. At least Ravitch takes us on a national tour and creates links for us to follow. That takes us part of the way towards forging a national resistance.

Lois Weiner, who we hope to have as a guest speaker at an upcoming GEM meeting (she's out in Chicago now speaking to CORE), puts the Diane Ravitch book in perspective in the New Politics journal. You can see a video of a recent event where Weiner and Ravitch appeared at this link: http://www.blip.tv/file/3425447/

Susan Ohanian, who has been writing about this stuff for over well over a decade, commented: I agree with Lois Weiner that we should applaud much of Diane Ravitch's critique of school reform in Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice ARe Undermining Education. I think her book is on target with many valuable insights in the New York City and San Diego chapters and mostly on target about the Billionaire's Club. But I also agree with Lois that what is missing is a critique of liberalism and an exposure of the savagery of capitalism.

by Lois Weiner

Five friends, none of them teachers, have called to tell me they heard about Diane Ravitch's new book and her change of heart about the school reforms she advocated for a decade. "Lo! She's saying what you've been telling us!"

The publicity for Ravitch's book has certainly put her incisive critique of the reforms (privatizing education; using standardized tests to measure everything; looking to "choice" and charter schools drive improvement) in the news.

But it is revealing that Ravitch's book uses none of the scholarship that radical critics of NCLB published about the reforms she supported. Instead, she goes back and reinvents the wheel. (Susan Ohanian has traced the foundations that contributed $125,000 to the writing of the book.)

I noted in panel at New York University in which Ravitch, Edward Fergus, and I appeared, Ravitch should be commended for her courage in criticizing the extremely powerful think tanks and figures (the "Billionaire Boys Club") with whom she previously hobnobbed. Her drive to set the record straight on how the reforms are destroying public education should be welcomed.

Still, it's important to note what she gets wrong and why. In the book she explains being "caught up" in the widespread "enthusiasm" for market reforms. She will not, however, name this as the neoliberal project. By the political yardstick she uses in the book, the American Enterprise Institute is a "well-respected conservative think tank." Someone whose first job in New York was at The New Leader [pdf file], where she learned all about left sectarian politics and met Max Shachtman, (as she noted in our exchange before the panel), knows enough to name capitalism's latest iteration.

Ravitch won't name neoliberalism as the problem because it would force her to confront facts she'd rather ignore. Like the fact that 70% of the new jobs being created only require a minimal education. Or the fact that her idea of a great education is the Houston schools of her youth, a school system that was racially segregated.

Ravitch's very unpersuasive agenda to beat back the neoliberal assault is a return to the post WW2 welfare state, pre-Brown versus education and those messy social movements that created the culture wars. She wants a kinder, gentler neoconservative restoration, one shorn of neoliberalism's savagery. Her solutions include having parents (meaning minority parents) teach their kids how to behave right and read to them at home.

As I said in the panel, this solution won't do. I share Ravitch's critique but to halt this juggernaut we have to see the international dimension of the project and its roots in capitalism's appetite for greater profits from a workforce that competes in a race to the bottom.

Neoliberalism's project to privatize education and destroy the teacher unions (though perhaps they'll be permitted to exist in name only, in the West) can't be defeated with Ravitch's solutions. Diane will have to come on board with her radical critics if she's serious about reversing the destruction she describes so well in her book.

— Lois Weiner
New Politics
2010-04-11
http://newpol.org/node/292

We Are In Deep Doo Doo
Lois Weiner
Borderland transcription of NYU speech
2010-04-11
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_atrocities.php?id=3955

Borderland has provided a transcription of Lois Weiner's trenchant
observations at the NYU  Radical Film and Lecture Series.

Tuesday: Forum for Teachers and Education Activists

Lois Weiner put together a wonderful presentation at the Education and Labor Conference a few weeks ago. Lois captured our attention when she pointed to a World Bank report stating that teachers and their unions were the major threat to global prosperity. See how events in your classroom are related to the global assault on teachers.

APRIL 15

Tuesday, 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

Making Schools Work for Poor People?: Joel Klein & the World Bank's Dedication to a Corporate Agenda

A Presentation by Lois Weiner, New Jersey City University, author of "The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and their Unions: Stories for Resistance"

Discussion to follow.

Breathtakingly rapid changes are being made in the NYC schools in the name of equalizing opportunity for poor, minority communities. Services ranging from tutoring to curriculum development to professional development are being privatized; standardized tests have become the sole measure of student and teacher achievement and value; preparation of teachers and
principals is shifting to a fast track model; merit pay is being pushed on teachers, to replace salaries based on experience and education. What's been missing in the debate about these changes is how NYC's experience reflects the footprint of a global project advanced by world financial institutions to transform work and education with it.

Julia Richman Education Complex 317 E. 67th St. (betw. 1st and 2nd Ave.),
6th Floor "Penthouse"

FREE

RSVP at info@teachersunite.net

Today's Quickies

October 11, 2007 (updated 12 pm)

Reminder that today is the High Stakes Forum at Fordham at 6PM. It's pretty well booked but if you are in the area, check in (see details in post below.) I am doing the videography, so SMILE!

Baltimore teachers are calling for the resignation of Supt. Andres Alonso just 2 months after he left Tweed to fly on his own. The day he got the job we predicted problems with the teachers union. Of course he appointed a general to help him run things. (Do a search of this blog to read the Alonso stories.) Alonso seems to be at a big disadvantage compared to Klein. He actually is facing a non-collaborationist union with some spine. Follow their actions at http://md.aft.org/btu/. As an AFT local expect them to be advised by their new president next July that collaboration is the way to go with old UFT pal Andres. I posted the article from the Baltimore Sun on Norms Notes.

Baltimore teachers stood up to Alonso's bullshit almost from day one while the UFT praised and sucked up to Klein. People in Baltimore are already raising governance issues that led to Alonso being appointed with a general as an assistant.

When Klein was appointed we heard nothing from the UFT but praise and when Children First was announced, Randi's "It's all breathlessly possible." Even at this time there has been no call for Klein's resignation or a vote of no confidence which about 98% of the teaching staff (and a hell of a lot of principals and even admins above them) would sign on to.


The Bronx High School of Science "Quack" story has been humming as the mainstream press seems to be getting involved after our post a few days ago. It has been interesting following the postings of the kids at the school as some seniors worry about revenge by school administrators and guidance counselors in relation to getting into college while others talk about leaving their legacy so future generations do not forget the "quacking" story. One former student commented that his favorite Reidy quote was "Asians speak Asian." The animosity towards Reidy by the kids seems to be more intense than that of teachers. And I received an email from a parent leader that indicates many of them feel the same. WOW! Reidy has united parents, teachers and students.

Call it for the revenge of Bob Drake, the untenured PhD chemistry teacher who Principal Valerie Reidy hounded out of the system. Drake enjoys a job at a public school in Conn. at mucho times the salary. THANK YOU, VALERIE REIDY! Betsy Combier has a bunch of stuff on Drake and Science on her parentadvocates web site. The cartoon from the Riverdale Review, which has done a number of stories on the case, was posted by the students on facebook. Andy Wolfe in the NY Sun did a piece in May 2005 and we should see some articles today or tomorrow in some the NY Dailies. And check out the blog of a former student here.


I posted an old but very worthwhile piece by Lois Weiner on Albert Shanker's Legacy on norms notes. Lois is a former NYC teacher and UFT delegate and she fleshed out some of the missing pieces in Kahlenberg's recent book - 10 years ago. I guess Kahlenberg somehow missed talking to people like Lois or citing her work. I'll revert to the old standby "I'm shocked, shocked to find out there's gambling going on here." Look for the Shanker apologists to start counter attacking. Kahlenberg will be appearing on a symposium with Diane Ravitch (closely tied to Shanker) and Debbie Meier (who if I remember correctly was a critic) at NYU at the end of October. I'm hoping to attend.

Lois recruited Bruce Markens and me to review the Kahlenberg book for New Politics. Lois also wrote a wonderful piece on neoliberalism in 2003 and education which illuminates many connections between the actions of the Democrats, BloomKlein, Gates, Broad, Weingarten (posted on the norms notes blog recently.) I am 2/3 through the book and it is must reading to get a full picture of what is going on today. Personally, I do not take the black and white (partially a joke if you know Shanker's views on race & quotas) view of Shanker and am finding a lot to agree with - in theory. But when you put it all in context, the angle changes. I'm still sorting it all out and hope to meet with Bruce and Lois (who I've never met) next week.


Did you see the Time-Warner full-page ad on the back page of the NY Times metro section lauding their award to five outstanding principals in NYC? Money that could have gone to help teachers and kids. But maybe the Times gave a big discount for a promotion of BloomKlein.