Billy Shakespeare Message to Randi - Ed Notes Redux, October 2001

Billy S - needs certification in English

In 2001 when Randi was moving towards supporting merit pay - which she called "school based incentives", one of the essential planks of ed deform, I tried to get a resolution up at the DA calling for the UFT to refuse to support merit pay in any form. Up to this point Randi had called on me regularly but this time month after month she shut me out. She clearly didn't want this reso to come up. I would say that a veil lifted as I saw her constant manipulation in a new light.

Burying merit pay

Those were my creative days (I have no capacity to do this kind of thing now). I wrote this as the Marc Antony Caesar funeral oration was an apt way to express my thoughts where a discussion of merit pay- er -school based incentives - substituted for the dead Caesar. Reprinted from Ed Notes, Oct. 2001.

The following was written by Billy Shakespeare., a native of Stratford-0n-Avon, England, who is currently teaching chemistry at a high school in Brooklyn. Billy is uncertified, as he has not yet been able to pass the NY State certification exams in English, his specialty. 

Delegates, Teachers, Fellow Unionists
Lend me your ears!
I come to praise Randi, not to bury her.
The evil that union leaders do lives after them;
The good is oft interred within their speeches.
Come I to speak at the funeral of the merit pay---er---school-based incentives--- discussion.
The noble Randi hath told you that opponents of merit pay--er--- school-based incentives--- were ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath we answer'd it.
Randi is an honorable union leader. They all are honorable union leaders. 

We dreamed of discussing this issue in Dec. ought ought.
Randi says that was ambitious and Randi is an honorable union leader.
An attempt was made to bring the issue up in January but Randi hath decided we were in a dearth of time and cancelled such opportunity.
You didst all see that in Mar, April & May thrice were attempts made to discuss merit pay--er----school-based incentives-- And thrice wust we refused.
Did this seem ambitious? Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
In March prepareth were we all to speak on merit pay--er---school- based incentives.
Yet, you all did see that on the dais were comptroller candidates Billy T. and Herbie B who doth speaketh for 30 minutes
And we runneth out of time as the bell tolled for automatic ad- journment at 6.
Randi said extending the time was ambitious and Randi is an honorable union leader. 

Thus cometh April and expecteth us to see the merit pay---er---- school-based incentives--- discussion reach fruition.
And saw the honorable Tom Pappas put on a fabulous festival of fashion shows of arm bands and tee shirts
Whilst the merit pay--er--school-based incentives---- discussion issue fell like sands of time.
And we raiseth a question about these wasting sands and were quickly chastised by the wise Randi.
Were we ambitious? Randi says we were and Randi is an honorable union leader.
I speak not to disprove what Randi spoke
But I am here to speak what I do know.
That the April merit pay discussion began at 6:15 to the sounds of stomachs growling and Unity Caucus revelrers departing for the palace of the Hilton to celebrate their great and noble victory over the Goths of Shulman.*

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for the death of the merit pay---er---school-based incentives--- discussion? O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And Unity caucus men and women have lost their reason. Bear with me; 

Doth came May:
Avi of Lewis placed the battle of District 23 in proper context: That booty doth seem fairly inconsequential Unless shall be granted across the board increases
By the mean God Giuliani.
Yet we watched the minuscule 15 minutes of discussion time trickle away
Oh! What will come of such discussion, which lacked depth and magnitude
As was left many speakers deserted at the alter?
I fear I wrong the honourable union leaders
Whose daggers have stabb'd the merit pay---er--school- based incentives discussion; I do fear it. 

Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up To such a sudden flood of mutiny.
They that have done this deed are honourable:
What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,
That made them do it: they are wise and honourable, And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. 

I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts: I am no orator, as Randi is;
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man, For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, To stir men's blood; I only speak right on;
I tell you that which you yourselves do know;
Show you sweet merit pay---er--school-based incentives discussion’s wounds, poor poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me.
But were I Randi, And Randi I, there wouldst ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue
In every wound of the merit pay---er--school-based incentives discussion that should move
The stones of the UFT to rise and mutiny. 

O masters, if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Randi wrong, and Tom wrong,
Who, you all know, are honourable union leaders:
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose to wrong the dead merit pay-- er----school-based incentives--discussion, to wrong myself and you than I will wrong such honourable union leaders.
My heart is in the coffin
With the merit pay--er---school-based incentives--- discussion. 
 

*The 2001 UFT election victory over New Action had been completed by April and Unity was heading to the Hilton for a celebration ("The Goths of Shulman"). 

Albert Shanker on Merit Pay

Shanker says some interesting and contradictory things in these statements. I raise the issue here to support my theme that in any ways Randi Weingarten has not shifted the position of the AFT/UFT far from where Shanker was coming from, though later in this post you will see Shanker say something that you won't hear from Weingarten.

Meet the Press, May, 1983

Shanker said he was urging all teachers to keep "an open mind" about merit pay. He praised elements of the plan pro-posed by Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander that was blocked by strenuous lobbying by the NEA's state affiliate. Shanker said Alexander's plan would provide "very large rewards" to a large number of Tennessee teachers, who would have a voice in determining who got the bonus pay. He said the plan had some shortcomings, but "meets many of the objections which teachers traditionally have raised."

The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, March 30, 1982

MacNEIL: Are you saying that a teacher cannot by himself or herself make himself better by an act of will in order to gain more pay?

Mr. SHANKER: That's right. If you pay me more money I will not sing any better than I usually sing, and whenever I sing I sing as well as I can, and whenever I teach I teach as well as I can.

MacNEIL: Well, why, if extra pay is an incentive for good performance everywhere else in the American system, should it not be for teachers?

Mr. SHANKER: Well, there are some things where extra pay is an incentive and works, and there are other fields -- for instance, I doubt very much that if you gave a soldier in the middle of a battle more money that that soldier would do any better. And I don't think anybody has ever proposed it. I think that people in battle generally fight as well as they can because they're fighting for their own lives. And I think a teacher in a classroom is fighting for his or her self respect, professional life, and that the -- I would add one other thing. You know, I don't know of any other field where people get punished for being satisfactory, and that's part of this proposal. If you're satisfactory you're punished. I also feel that, you know, whether you're viewed as being satisfactory or superior largely depends on how you stand in relationship or in comparison to your colleagues. And if I'm in a school, and if I know that my evaluation and rating is going to depend on not only how well I do, but [how] everyone else in that school does, I'm not going to help other teachers if I have some professional talents. Instead of cooperating with my colleagues and helping them solve prob-lems, the first thing I'm going to think of is, "Gee, if they've got this same ability that I do, I'm not going to look like I'm superior, because they all have it." So one of the things that this sets up is, instead of setting up a cooperative and mutu-ally supportive atmosphere, it sets up very destructive competition.

This discussion came out of an email from James Boutin, our former NYC colleague now working in Seattle.

Hi NYCers,

It seems we have something similar to E4E sprouting out here in Seattle. The guy below says Al Shanker endorsed merit pay. Anyone know if this is true?

Teachers United is an interesting development to me. They work with Stand for Children, support charters and merit pay, tell stories about how their TFA members raised test scores dramatically at all the schools they ever worked at, and say they support the Washington Education Association and people in the WEA while suggesting that teachers consider working outside the union to get things done....

http://crosscut.com/2012/06/21/k-12/109245/teachers-

James Boutin

Public School Teacher, www.anurbanteacherseducation.


Pat Dobosz suggested some sites:

Ed Notes Online: Merit Pay, the UFT, TJC, and NCLB

Shanker Blog » Revisiting The Merits Of Merit Pay

What Albert Shanker Said About Merit Pay « Diane Ravitch's blog

Jeff Kaufman found some interesting items

Like many issues Shanker’s views on merit pay were nuanced and at times appeared contradictory. I have attached two articles (SEE PDFs BELOW). One, a transcript from the MacNeil Lehrer News Report in 1982 seems to be emphatic in his opposition to merit pay and the second article is about an appearance less than a year later on Meet the Press (but after a then Tenn. Gov Alexander proposal to teacher distributed merit pay) in which he speaks in favor. I have not reviewed hundreds of other statements and articles he is either quoted or wrote about this issue but I am sure there are more nuanced positions in there.

John Lawhead followed up with:

Shanker's openness to merit pay in May '83 followed his endorsement of the Nation at Risk report which was released a month before.  Merit pay was one of its recommendations.  In supporting the report he reversed himself on a number of issues.

In the Kahlenberg biography Sandra Feldman is quoted saying, "We all had this visceral reaction to it. You know, 'This is horrible.  They're attacking teachers.'  Shanker's shift shocked everyone.  He obviously didn't bother waiting for consensus from the rest of the AFT leadership.  For him it didn't work that way.

Here are the pdfs from 30 years ago. Wow. Really interesting stuff. Thanks Jeff.

The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, March 30, 1982
Meet the Press, The Associated Press, May 29, 1983

Here is something Shanker said that some might wish Weingarten/Mulgrew would repeat:

Shanker, asked if his union would defend incompetent teachers against firing, said, "We'd defend them, but we defend murderers in our society, too, and rapists and everybody else. The fact is that you're innocent until proven guilty."

Reagan's Attacks Hurt Teaching Profession, Meet the Press, Al Shanker


Grading Teachers the MacNeilLehrer Report M

Video: Merit Pay, Teacher Pay, and Value Added Measures

http://youtu.be/uONqxysWEk8

UFT: Bleak House

"The unions did not gain any clear benefit from the deal, other than shielding themselves from criticism that they were hurting the state’s chances in Race to the Top."
- NY Times


We hate to tell you so, but we told you so. That the higher the percentage of the vote for Michael Mulgrew, the more likely it was that the Unity Caucus leadership would be freed to give up more without worrying about the reaction of the members. First it was the rubber room agreement, which even without seeing it and knowing the political landscape, we could predict would end up as a losing proposition for teachers.

Now comes the latest agreement by the union Agreement Will Alter Teacher Evaluations that will sink us to new depths - until the next time. Here's the skinny from the NY Times:

The State Education Department and New York’s teachers’ unions have reached a deal to overhaul teacher evaluations and tie them to student test scores, brokering a compromise on an issue the unions had bitterly opposed for years.

The agreement, reached in time for the state’s second bid at $700 million in federal education grants, would scrap the current system whereby teachers were rated simply satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Instead, annual evaluations would place teachers in one of four categories — highly effective, effective, developing and ineffective. While the deal would not have any immediate effect on teacher pay, it could make it easier for schools to fire teachers deemed subpar.

Teachers would be measured on a 100-point scale, with 20 percent points based on how much students improve on the standardized state exams. Another 20 percent would be based on local tests, which would have to be developed by each school system. After two years, 25 percent would be based on the state exams and 15 percent would come from the local tests.

The unions — the New York State United Teachers and the United Federation of Teachers, the city’s union — did not gain any clear benefit from the deal, other than shielding themselves from criticism that they were hurting the state’s chances in Race to the Top. And union leaders who backed the plan could face significant backlash from members, particularly at a time when many districts are planning for layoffs.

The remainder of the evaluation will come from observations from principals and other teachers, and other measures. If teachers are rated ineffective for two consecutive years, they would face firing through an expedited hearing process that must conclude within 60 days. Currently hearings can drag on for several months.

The only inaccuracy here is that there will be little backlash or consequences from the members. The election is over and the rest of the union bodies are locked up by Unity and their New Action lackeys. Am I beginning to sound like "people are getting what they asked for"?

We told you that Mulgrew was more style than substance and would turn out to be Randi light. Check out how the AFT in Colorado and in New Jersey is caving on many issues while the NEA is putting up a semblance of a fight. I will say this time and again. Watch Mulgrew and the 800 Unity caucus members we are paying for in Seattle this summer cave into every sell-out policy.

Watch New Action Mulgrew supporter bloggers try to explain this one away - maybe by raising some questions in a disingenuous "who me" manner while remaining silent at Delegate Assemblies and Executive Board meetings.

I'm more proud than ever to be a 9 per cent dissenter rather than a 91% Mulgrew assenter.

Coming soon:
Merit pay based on the above - leading to total salary schedules being revamped.

And of course, lifting the charter school cap resulting in the UFT loss of another 3% of the members as they flail about helplessly trying to organize these teachers into the union - with a separate and unequal contract. Look for a dues increase to make up the shortfall so Unity can continue to live the life style they are accustomed to.

I'm off to the Pakter hearing. Reports later.

Poverty Pimp Eva Moskowitz Steals Another Public School

photoshopped by David B.

... and another batch of teachers as ATRs are created

Patrick Sullivan writes at the NYC Parent Blog:

Bloomberg & Klein Send the State Assembly A Message

Excerpt:

The Times also confirms the PS 241 in Manhattan's District 3 will be replaced with a branch of the Eva Moskowitz charter chain, Harlem Success Academy.

What's news here is not just a new charter school opening but that the Bloomberg administration will convert a public school to a charter school without a majority vote of the parent body as required by state law. The elimination of the school will also require the neighborhood to be rezoned to reassign children to other schools left by the gap created by 241's closure. The administration has signaled that it will not seek the approval for rezoning from Distirct 3's Community Education Council, also required by state education law.

Clearly there is a message here. It was only a few weeks ago that members of the Assembly heavily criticized both the style and substance of Klein's management of the schools at a Manhattan hearing. In fact, PS 241 sits in the district of Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell, the Education Committee member who captivated the hearing audience with his incisive questioning and witty responses to the usual DOE deflections. By openly flouting the law, Bloomberg and Klein are making it clear they are above any law and will do precisely as they please.

Is the UFT "A Union of Professionals?"

UFT leaders like to play make believe by trying to give the impression that we are a union of professionals. A profession is controlled by the members. But in NYC the UFT has assisted Joel Klein in the process of de-professionalizing and de-skilling teachers, who have less control than ever over what goes on in their classrooms.

I never looked at teaching as a profession. Though we used to be able to make a lot more basic decisions in our classes, most of us had little or not say in the curriculum or the materials we could use. Until 1979 I still had a lot of freedom. But that year we got a new principal who was a testing freak (she figured that if the raised our scores drastically she could become a Superintendent). There went the remnants of our freedom. I fought the testing wars with her for the rest of my career but gave up the ghost by leaving the self-contained classroom to become a computer teacher for my last 10 years in the school. But ever there we had friction as she wanted me to use the lab for test prep instead of teaching word processing (who measures that?)

There is a direct correlation between the standards and accountability movement that the UFT has so supported since the early 80's and the disappearance of whatever element of professionalism we used to have.

Witness the initial imposition by Joel Klein of the Diana Lam so-called progressive education system modeled on Teachers College, a program that was the core of District 2 (most of lower Manhattan) and then District 15 (Park Slope and Sunset Park in Brooklyn.) I was in District 14 (Greenpoint/Williamsburg) where we had the opposite program, a more rigid method of teaching, which we also didn't have a say in either, but at least they left us alone - mostly. The methods used were brutal and many teachers who could not adapt quickly were attacked by administrators. Some teachers "adapted" by faking it.

If we were a union of professionals, we would have played a role in these basic decisions.

The other point of attack has been the use of instant teachers in the Teaching Fellow and Teach for America program, many of whom leave after their two year commitment. The attacks on career teachers, a basic tenet of a profession, were inherent in the acceptance of this approach.

Now, I'm not taking a position vis a vis these people entering teaching (it was the way I came in in 1967.) I think it takes at least 3 years to become a proficient teacher no matter how you come in, though people with some background in student teaching have less ground to cover. Instead of calling for a paid apprentice program which would professionalize teaching, the UFT has gone along with the instant teacher schemes. (The Teaching Fellows idea came from Harold Levy, Klein's predecessor.)

The UFT supported the elimination of 1000 teachers who did not pass the teaching test but who had taught for years and were rated Satisfactory for their teaching while supporting people who had no experience and 6 weeks of training, but who did pass the test. What does that tell you about how they view professionalism?

The UFT view of professionalism is as narrow as you could get:

More money for teachers (not a bad thing but in our case, tied to longer days and school years, which is easy - and given the tremendous amount of increased responsibilities heaped on teachers - money for blood.)

The other plank of professionalism is a seat at the table for union leaders.

As to fighting for the right of classroom teachers to control what they do on the job, nada.

The idea as to whether to put money into massive accountability schemes and ignore class size is made by politicians, not educators. the UFT has gone along all along, paying lip service to class size for three decades (you'll notice the million dollar campaigns with petitions, etc has disappeared from the UFT's lexicon.)

That the UFT tries to call this a Union of Professionals is a joke.

Their idea is to give the union leaders a seat at the table while the rank and file gain little. The UFT can only gain this seat at the table by agreeing to be partners in the so-called reform movement based on standards and accountability. We know that the latter means "blame the teacher."

The UFT/AFT has been part of the public relations mantra used by Klein and Rhee that teacher quality is the most important element.

The first time I heard Randi talk about teacher quality, I immediately emailed her that she was walking into a trap. (At that time I actually thought she might be well-intentioned - silly me.)

That is why unless power within the union is shifted from the top, teachers will be given the illusion they are professionals but treated as drones.

The union has played this role: not as a strong advocate for teachers but as an intermediary between the so-called political reformers and the rank and file teachers, selling them mayoral control, merit pay, getting them to sign on to one way accountability (we don't want to make excuses, do we?)

Thus, teachers should not view themselves as professionals but as much a part of the working class as construction workers and teamsters.

In these times, that is exactly the type of union leadership teachers need. The type that will say, "Take yur stinkin' accountability and yur phony test driven curriculum and bury them in yur black robes."

My point is proved by these droppings from the Little Red Book of UFT high school VP and blogger in residence, Leo Casey from a post on a listserve.

We have had rather substantive critiques of the school progress reports and on their over reliance on test scores, but we are also political realists who take stock of developments in the real political world, and not just our ideal positions

While some think that there should be no differentiation for pay among teachers other than seniority and educational credentials, we do not believe that there is some special merit in such an industrial, proletarian view of teaching, and are quite willing to support the development of a teaching profession that allows for the development of different roles with special expertise, and provide additional financial remuneration for them.

Leo loves to use words like "proletarian." Sorry Leo. Your policies have made teachers more part of the proletarian proletariat than ever. I have a lot more droppings from Leo to report on. You can read the entire raw thread from the arn listserve on Norms Notes. But watch where you step.

Pay for Performance Works? So Says Randi

Click to enlarge

There comes a point where Randi Weingarten becomes an embarrassment to working teachers everywhere. Her pronouncement that bonus pay works is an insult to teachers.

Even NYC parent activists at the NYC Public School Parent blog, where Weingarten doesn't get much attention, are disturbed.

Patrick Sullivan who represents Manhattan on the Panel for Educational Policy, put up this post.

Randi Weingarten’s recent speech, where she was introduced by Mike Bloomberg, includes a strong endorsement for teacher merit pay based on high-stakes standardized testing.


From an AP article entitled “Union Prez: Performance Pay Works”:
Weingarten described the teacher pay system in New York City , where school-wide bonuses are based on overall test scores in high-poverty schools. Weingarten, as head of the New York teachers union, negotiated the system last year with Mayor Michael Bloomberg.


The new system is working, she said: Teachers already are getting bonuses for improving student achievement in 128 of 200 eligible schools.


But it wasn’t so long ago we were hearing a different story from the Weingarten-led United Federation of Teachers. Last year, a more detailed analysis in the UFT newsletter was entitled: “Pay for performance not performing well: Places using such models have run into snags”.


The UFT article starts out this way:


“Guess what? New teacher pay-for-performance plans in Florida and Texas have run into big problems. Not surprised? Aha. You may be a teacher”.


It's not just teachers who should be concerned. The program here in NYC makes standardized testing even more high stakes which will lead to more cheating, test prep, teaching to the test and the narrowing of the curriculum. It's our kids who will suffer.


Weingarten’s new position is certainly disappointing. Is it a result of politics and ideology trumping research and actual experience?

If parents are disappointed, the emails coming in from angry NYC teachers is beyond the pale. I'll share some of these in a future post.

Serious teachers are concerned that bonus pay will not make teachers work harder, it will force many to shade their teaching in a narrow, standardized test driven direction and place those who resist in a terrible position.

A NY Times Op ed by Dan Ariely (What's Value of a Big Bonus?) on Nov. 20 blew some serious holes in the "pay for performance" case. Here are some excerpts:

By withholding bonuses from their top executives, Goldman Sachs and UBS may soften negative reaction from Congress and the public if their earnings reports in December are poor, as is expected. But will they also suffer because their executives, lacking the motivation that big bonuses are thought to provide, will not do their jobs well?


We presented 87 participants with an array of tasks that demanded attention, memory, concentration and creativity. We asked them, for instance, to fit pieces of metal puzzle into a plastic frame, to play a memory game that required them to reproduce a string of numbers and to throw tennis balls at a target. We promised them payment if they performed the tasks exceptionally well. About a third of the subjects were told they’d be given a small bonus, another third were promised a medium-level bonus, and the last third could earn a high bonus.


What would you expect the results to be? When we posed this question to a group of business students, they said they expected performance to improve with the amount of the reward. But this was not what we found. The people offered medium bonuses performed no better, or worse, than those offered low bonuses. But what was most interesting was that the group offered the biggest bonus did worse than the other two groups across all the tasks.


...the offer of a higher bonus led to poorer performance.
If our tests mimic the real world, then higher bonuses may not only cost employers more but also discourage executives from working to the best of their ability.

Read the full piece.


The DOE press release (98% of Eligible Schools Opt to Participate in Second Year of School-Wide Performance Bonus Program) is here.

Kelly Vaughan at Gotham Schools has a piece that indicates there is little difference between schools with and without performance pay. She put up this chart. Kelly has a link if you want to download a pdf listing all schools involved.

If you watched the CBS evening news last night you saw a story about the greatest shoe salesman (Walk a Mile in His Shoes) who worked without commission. "What was your motivation?" "Myself."

I urge teachers to join with those of us who will be starting a city-wide campaign to reverse a policy by our own union that gives credence to the anti-teacher community that teachers will work harder for more pay. Next JNJT Meeting Dec. 1 at 5:30 at CUNY - 34st and 5th ave. rm 5414 (see sidebar for updates.)

We Must Be a NUT (No Unnecessary Testing)

Almost every major issue facing teachers in NYC (and elsewhere) can be linked to the evils of high stakes testing. Closing schools based on tests leads to Teacher Reserves. Narrow curriculum. Bored students. More discipline problems as a result. Yet the UFT, while paying lip service to the concept there is too much testing, has gone along with most of the Bloomberg/Klein/market-based no nothing education engineers: merit pay, rating teachers based on tests, no opposition to closing schools, etc. The UFY clearly has a stake in the merit pay program as they ran workshops jointly with the DOE accountability people and when one of the Justice Not Just Tests reps tried to raise objections he was not exactly treated with courtesy by one of the UFT leaders, Michael Mendel. I've been working with the Justice Not Just Tests on a campaign to reach into the schools and get teachers to join us by creating such a massive movement in the UFT the leadership will be forced to notice.

Here is an excellent piece by Steven Krashen. Become a NUT in your school.


The Fundamental Principle: No Unnecessary Testing (NUT)
Stephen Krashen
The Colorado Communicator vol 32,1. Page 7, 2008

No Unnecessary Testing (NUT) is the principle that school should include only those tests and parts of tests that are necessary, that contribute to essential evaluation and learning. Every minute testing and doing “test preparation” (activities to boost scores on tests that do not involve genuine learning) is stolen from students’ lives, in addition to costing money that we cannot afford these days, with serious budget problems in American schools.

If we accept the NUT principle, it leads to this question: Do we need yearly standardized tests closely linked to the curriculum? Do they tell us more than teacher evaluation does? This issue must be looked at scientifically. If, for example, the current CSAP (Colorado Student Assessment Program) test is shortened and/or given less frequently or abandoned, will student performance be affected? Would Colorado’s NAEP scores (already quite high) be affected?

My prediction is that teacher evaluation does a better job of evaluating students than standardized testing: The repeated judgments of professionals who are with children every day is probably more valid that a test created by distant strangers. Moreover, teacher evaluations are “multiple measures,” are closely aligned to the curriculum, and cover more than just math and reading.

There is some evidence supporting this view for high school students: Research by UC Berkeley scholars Saul Geiser and Maria Veronica Saltelices shows that high school grades in college preparatory courses are a better predictor of achievement in college and four-year college graduation rates than are standardized tests (the SAT). Geiser and Saltelices found that adding SAT scores to grades did not provide much more information than grades alone, which suggests that we may not need standardized tests at all.

For those who argue that we need standardized tests in order to compare student achievement over time and to compare subgroups of students, we already have a good instrument for this, the NAEP. The NAEP is administered to small groups of children, who each take a portion of the test, every few years. Results are extrapolated to estimate how the larger groups would score. No test prep is done, as the tests are zero stakes: There are no (or should be no) consequences for low or high scores. If we are interested in a general picture of how children are doing, this is the way to do it. If we are interested in finding out about a patient’s health, we only need to look at a small sample of their blood, not all of it.

My predictions, however, need to be put to the empirical test. A conservative path is to start to cut back on standardized tests, both in length and frequency, and determine if this has any negative consequences. This is an essential move now, when funds are so scarce, and it is an essential exercise of our responsibility to students.

Geiser, S. and Santelices, M.V., 2007. Validity of high-school grades in predicting student success beyond the freshman year: High-school record vs. standardized tests as indicators of four-year college outcomes. Research and Occasional Papers Series: CSHE 6.07, University of California, Berkeley. http://cshe.berkeley.edu Thanks to Geoff for this.

Does your school have merit pay?

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY

Does your school have merit pay?

Justice Not Just Tests is looking for educators who are at schools with merit pay.

To date, 35 of the 240 schools who were offered merit pay voted against having pay for performance in their schools because of the harmful effects that high-stakes testing has had on teachers and students.

-We are looking for stories and examples of discussions that teachers are having in schools that have implemented merit pay (whether you've earned it or not).

-These merit pay testimonials can include changes to your school's culture, language that your administrators have used, competition amongst teachers and how it promotes test prep.

-We plan to collect this information and use it to organize a campaign to remove merit pay from NYC schools.

Submissions may be publicized anonymously.

Please e-mail Justice Not Just Tests at jnjt@nycore.org if you would like to contribute a story.
For more information about merit pay and high-stakes testing, go to Justice Not Just Tests' webpage at http://www.nycore.org/jnjt.html

A full list of merit pay schools can be found here
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pgxRf3gM4qtz60kWUvt49DQ

UFT Hypocrisy on Merit Pay Exposed

I'm working with the Justice Not Just Tests group from NYCORE to campaign against all forms of merit pay. An excellent pamphlet is being prepared that we want to distribute to schools that accepted and rejected merit pay, so let me know if you are interested in helping us get this out if you are in one of the shcools or have access to someone.

I almost missed this post on the issue from NYC Educator. It is posted here, but it needs to be reposted again so I am including most of it.


A recent post by Leo Casey in Edwize criticizes the School Progress Reports that the DoE issues (you know, the ones that give "A"s to schools the state classifies as "persistently dangerous"). I agree, of course, that there is fluctuation from year to year, and that the variation from one year to the next is not all that significant.

What, in particular, did Mr. Casey find troubling about these reports?

One small problem: they are not reliable.

He'll get no argument from me. Here, though, is what strikes me as odd--when I read this article in NY Teacher about UFT merit pay (you know, the merit pay system that absolutely is not a merit pay system, like the sixth class you teach Monday to Thursday that is absolutely not a sixth class), I can't help but notice the following:

The criteria for awarding bonus money to a school will be aligned with the Department of Education’s new School Progress Reports and entail various benchmarks, more than just standardized test.

Now this is where I really get confused. Since the School Progress Reports are not valid, why would Ms. Weingarten and Mr. Casey base the not-merit pay system on them? I mean, I've been reading Edwize and NY Teacher for years, and the one thing I've learned is that the UFT patronage mill never makes mistakes about anything, no matter what.


Hey, NYC. You must have an iron constitution. When I read Edwize, which is almost never, I get a tummy ache. Bromo, anyone?

Justice-Not-Just-Tests: First meeting of the year! Mon. Sept, 8 5:30 Cuny grad center

Sent from the NYCoRE working group that addresses high-stakes and standardized tests in our schools.

When: Mon., Sept, 8, 5:30
Where: Cuny grad. center. room 5414 (directions below, bring ID)

We are going to be getting ready for our campaign to resist merit pay in our schools. We will also be thinking about the up-coming year and mapping out our plans. So, please come if you are interested in fighting against high-stakes and standardized tests in our schools and fighting for justice. We need to be loud this election season!

If you have been thinking about getting involved in this fight, now is a great time! The merit pay issue is a big one and has been popping up a lot in the national debates about education. Now is the time to let the candidates know how actual educators feel! (Here is a link to an article in rethinking schools about merit pay in NYC: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/22_04/meri224.shtml)

Same goes for high-stakes and standardized tests. We all know that, at best, they simply don't work and are bad pedagogy. At worst, they are racist, thinly veiled attacks on public education and working class children of children of color. Why don't the candidates know?
(Link to nycore's position statement on testing http://www.nycore.org/PDF/testingposition.pdf)

We are always looking for fresh faces and new energy so make this the year you stand up for what you believe in!

If you have questions, comments, you want to come but can't, are planning to come, or are just friendly. . .

email us at jnjt@nycore.org

Grad Center
Located on Fifth Avenue between 34th and 35th Streets, the building is two blocks east of Penn Station, one block east of Herald Square, and two blocks west of the 33rd Street and Park Avenue station. The closest subway station, located at 34th Street and Avenue of the Americas, is served by the B, D, F, N, R, and Q trains.

Randi says bonus program meant to encourage collaboration....

.... between teachers and administrators, not to improve teacher quality

This one has to go on Letterman's Top Ten funniest list of Randiisms.

Elizabeth Green's piece in the NY Sun today about the expansion of the bonus program by 20% in the midst of budget cuts nails what BloomKlein is all about: right wing anti-teacher ideology ("see, we got the mighty UFT to buy into this.")

The expansion would cost taxpayers $25 million and would expand the program to include 270 schools from 230 this school year


Green writes that Weingarten
...was a partner to the city in conceiving the program last year. Yesterday, she said that, given the proposed budget cuts, the bonus-pay program falls into the category of an extra that should not be expanded if it means less money will go to core services. "I like this program. I wanted it. I like it," Ms. Weingarten said. "But not at the expense of cutting schools."

Well, Randi, if it is at the expense of the schools now, why wasn't it at the expense of the schools before?

Under the city's proposal, a large portion of the funds, $20 million, would be paid for with state money granted through the Contracts for Excellence program, which sets aside a certain pot of funds to be targeted only to a specific set of programs at the city's neediest schools.

One of the thousands of DOE spokespersons said:

...the program was a clear example of one of the Contracts for Excellence categories: improving teacher performance.

Can't you see the thought flashing through teachers' minds: Gee! For the extra 3 grand, I'll REALLY teach. The real code words are "improve teacher performance in raising test scores by hook or crook so we can claim we had a major impact on closing the achievement gap."

Schools use four-person "compensation committees" that include two administrators and two UFT members to make that decision. Chancellor Joel Klein last year voiced hope that the committees would choose to draft the size of the bonuses according to the size of test-score gains made by each teacher's students.

[Teacher] Gregory Schmidt...said one problem is that only three of the school's six grades are tested by the state, and many other UFT members do not see their performance judged by student tests: the art teacher, the gym teacher, and people who work in the main office, for instance. "You don't want to come back next fall and be sitting in the teachers' lounge with somebody who got less money than you did because of an arrangement you agreed to," Mr. Schmidt said. "If the whole thing becomes a battle amongst teachers for money, it would be crippling for school morale."

What should Randi Weingarten's response be:

Dear Joel,
Since you insist on playing games with the budget, we are joining ICE, TJC, Teachers Unite, Justice Not Just Tests, NYCORE, Time Out for Testing and other educational groups around the city in urging UFT members on the compensation committees in all 270 schools to reject the bonus pay plan in the future and use the money saved towards reducing the cuts you are imposing on the schools despite a large budget surplus.

Your (ex) pal
Randi

Ahhh! Just a dream on a hot summer day!

On Campbell's law --how attaching high stakes to test scores make the results highly suspect -- see posting by Steve Koss at http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2007/12/campbells-law-no-its-not-soup.html

Green's full piece at:
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/bonus-pay-for-teachers-may-be-expanded-amid/79578/

March Delegate Assembly Notes...

... removed at the request of the author. Contact Teachers for a Just Contract for a copy: JustContractUFT@aol.com

I preserved the comments:

NYC Educator said...
It sounds surreal. The whole 55/25 thing was touted as a great victory if only we would accept the 05 contract with the sixth class, the longer day and year, the permanent building assignment, the inability to grieve LIFs, the right to unpaid suspension based on hearsay evidence, and essentially giving back every single professional gain we'd earned since I began teaching.

And we were told the reason we didn't even get cost of living for that was our noble refusal to reduce rookie salaries.

Then we found we also had to take merit pay. And then we found that we would indeed reduce rookie salaries by 1.8% for up to 27 years.

And no one told us that NYSUT has a 55/25 bill with no penalty for anyone either.

That Ms. Weingarten and her patronage mill would support the "for profit" designation and merger is simply unconscionable. Her remarks that she does not know what will happen indicate the obvious--she doesn't care what will happen.

No wonder she thinks leading the largest teacher union in the country is a part time job.


Socratic method:
I don't understand the objection to merit pay. Can someone please explain it? It seems like merit pay is a good way to get more money into the hands of the good teachers, and out of the hands of the people who you say shouldn't have ever been granted tenure.

Anonymous
Socrates, I teach in Florida where there is merit pay. Here, It is based solely on children's tests scores and gives an unfair advantage to the teachers in better areas or with the "top" kids.
It is unfair!
We need to unite for additional funds for ALL teachers!

Anonymous said...
If there is merit pay, why would any teacher take a chance and teach a difficult class? It's much easier to go to a wealthier neighborhood where virtually all the kids will pass and say how brilliant you are as a teacher.


Socrates :
Well, those are two very narrow notions of merit pay. If merit pay were based on more than just test scores, and if the part that was just based on test scores was based on gains rather than absolute scores, you'd see everyone signing up to teach the lower classes in the poorest neighborhoods.

ed notes online
1. Name some factors beyond test scores.
2. If based on gains - kids learn at different rates. Or attendance factors? Or some special ed kids? Or disruptive behavior problems? What about losses - say a kid is absent 100 days - should the salary be cut?
3. As we've pointed out - it is not whether a school is good or bad and whether merit pay will attract teachers to a school -- what about all the private school and Catholic school teachers in NYC who are lower paid -- just go to a public school and get higher pay and more benefits - few seem to do it. Why not if money would attract these teachers (who must be superior because I bet their scores are high)?

Socratic Method
1. Rubric-based principal evaluations, peer evaluations, and/or 3rd party evaluations. I'm sure smarter people than I could come up with lots of others.

2. I'm not recommending that any one factor constitute the entirety of the merit-pay evaluation. And nothing will be exactly perfect and free of defects, but just about anything will be better than the current system. The system could be fine-tuned, but yes, special ed kids probably learn slower, so adjustments to the amount of gains required for a bonus could be made. Plus, if the evaluations listed in #1 came back really positive but the group of kids happened to be particularly hard to move, the other measured factors besides the test scores should reflect that.
3. Merit pay isn't the whole answer, but it's part of the answer. Discipline needs to be improved, for sure, but great teachers can handle just about any discipline problem, so do what it takes to attract such people to the toughest schools. I'll tell you what doesn't attract such people: the knowledge that they'll have to toil away next to someone who does no work but gets more money by account of them being older.

ed notes online
It's not only not a partial answer, it is a negative. Smater people thanyou HAVE NOT been able to come up with something - what's been holding them back?

So private and Catholic schools give merit pay?

What's better than the current pay system - which by the way is in operation for the police force and many other municipal services - do you think you will be safer if cops get merit pay?

Try an experiement. Lower class sizes in a bunch of places and pay merit pay in another. The merit pay kids might even score higher on the narrow high stakes tests. See which group of kids get the broadest based education with the most knowledge.

And are you talking about a serious chunk of change like they are giving principals for getting high scores? how is that merit system working out by the way? Ask principals behind closed doors and many of them laugh.

Pay for Performance Destruction

A brilliant piece that exposes what teaching and learning is all about by Jamiaca HS teacher JB McGeever in the City Limits. Delving into the kind of choice teachers face when test scores are used to evaluate their work, it is an impressive expression of the destructive impact merit pay schemes have on the teaching/learning process.

Our school just voted down the bonus/merit pay plan

Posted to the ICE-mail listserve.

Our school just voted down the bonus/merit pay plan. We are in D75 and they finally gave us the criteria of the plan last week. (although the UFT wanted us to vote on the plan back in November)
Anyway, I wanted to thank everyone on this list for the discussion of the pros and cons of the bonus plan. I was able to better articulate the reasons to vote against it, because of this list.

A spreadsheet (not updated) on NYC schools that voted down pay for performance is here.

Worth Reading....

...on teacher quality, the corporate model, pay for performance, NYC school governance, mayoral control, and commentary on Rotherham/Eduwonk tripe
These seem to be some of the push button policy issues facing educators, often promoted by pseudo educators looking to gain control of the public schools (for fun and profit.) Here are some selections and links for you to explore if you want to get a better sense of the debate.

The Offal Truth
On the recent Rotherham piece in the NY Times - look for a guest column at ednotes tomorrow. Meanwhile, Susan Ohanian came up with this comment:
Rich Gibson provides a valuable commentary on education offal offered up by the NY Times.
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=7878


Teacher Quality Rears It's Ugly Head
I don't agree with the stress on "teacher quality" because there's no clear way to measure that factor. Some use SAT scores or how high in their class they finish or test scores of their kids or how nice they dress or just plain voodoo. Teacher quality is often reflected as a snapshot at a certain time, a certain day, a certain year, a certain class, a certain child in the class (have you seen how teacher quality improves when that one kid who has been tormenting you and the other kids moves?)

Sean Corcoran, guest blogging at Eduwonkette, seems to be on board with the TQ issue and sees higher pay as a way to attract higher quality teachers. It seems to make sense but I don't necessarily agree here too. We often see this point made by NYC Educator who often attributes the quality of his daughter's suburban education to paying teachers a high salary. Again I disagree. Offer those same teachers a 25% raise to go to one of the 10 most difficult schools in NYC to teach at and let's see how they do.

Seean Corcoran wrote on March 6

A large and growing body of research has demonstrated that teacher quality is one of the most (if not the most) important resources schools contribute to the academic success of their students. At the same time, the average quality of teachers has steadily fallen over time, and an increasingly smaller fraction of the most cognitively skilled graduates are choosing to teach (for more on this see here).

Vanderhoek believes that significantly higher salaries will bring these top graduates back to the classroom, and he may be right. Economists have linked this steady decline in teacher quality since 1960 to the rise in career opportunities for women and the sizable gap between teacher salaries and those of other professionals.

Read the full piece with all the interesting comments here.

Diane Ravitch on corporate models for schools
Diane Ravitch to Deborah Meier on their Edweek blog:

Who controls our schools? Should the schools adopt a model of operations based on "results" (test scores) and "incentives" (paying teachers, students, and principals for higher test scores)? Are test scores the "profits" of the school system? Who are the stockholders?

Full story here.

Ravitch references Eduwonkette's exploration of whether pay for performance creates success in the corporate world (can you spell E-N-R-O-N?)

Pay for Performance in the Corporate World

We often hear that education needs to operate more like the private sector. But few corporations tie their employee bonuses to quantifiable output in the same way that some performance pay plans tie teacher pay to scores. (See How Does Performance Pay Work in Other Sectors?)

For those who believe that corporate employees rise and fall based on the fates of their companies, here's a story ripped from the headlines: Washington Mutual is shielding executive performance pay from the housing crisis fallout. From the Wall Street Journal article:Read the full post here.

Eduwonkette references Richard Rothstein's paper:
Holding Accountability to Account: How Scholarship and Experience in Other Fields Inform Exploration of Performance Incentives in Education

Download a pdf of Rothstein's piece here.


Diane Ravitch on the History of Public School Governance in NYC
Download Diane's pdf here.
The mayoral control issue is going hot and here in NYC, with most critics still lining up for a continuance with checks. Ed Notes and ICE are moving more towards a very localized system for at least elementary and middle schools with real control residing in the hands of teachers and parents at the school level. We know this is pie in the sky but we think the ideas should be out there for the next time the system they install in 2009 fails and they have to come up with something else. I'm all ready for the battles in 2017.

The Worst Book of the 21st Century - a review

Susan Ohanian Notes:

Gary Stager offers a must read commentary on pop business book authors who claim to offer insight into learning.

by Gary Stager

New notes to accompany my review...

As I attend my second conference in as many weeks where the keynote speaker is Daniel Pink, I feel duty bound to share some of my thoughts on why his popular pop-business book, "A Whole New Mind," may be the worst book of the 21st Century.

The book certainly contains little if anything to offer school leaders.

Recently, a lot of edubloggers were excited about a magazine discussion between Tom Friedman and Daniel Pink. Their performance was self-congratulatory, self-serving and intended to sell more of their respective books. Their cross-promotional exercise was brilliantly executed my two masterful self-promoters.

Read Gary's (who as a young 'un was in the local LOGO Users group here in NYC back in the 80's) at Susan's place here.

Happy Reading - if you have the stomach!

Merit Pay Defeated in GED-Plus

by Marjorie Stamberg

The merit pay proposal in GED-Plus has been solidly defeated--ballots were counted on March 6. Many chapter members worked very hard to express their opposition, at site meetings, boro meetings and chapter meetings. Since we are divided into 80 sites and boro hubs, it was quite a task to reach everyone so they could make an informed decision. I am very pleased that we can join the list of other UFT chapters who have had the courage to vote this down.

As a strongly advocate to vote down merit pay, I am personally very relieved that our chapter made such a strong statement. Merit pay is highly divisive -- it puts us in competition with each other, instead of fostering collaboration. It also hurts our students. In GED-Plus, as a D79 GED Program, we are particularly dedicated to working with the most needy students, and we are already working to the best of our ability. If our pay goes up or down, depending on which students come to school, or how well they do in tests, there would be a strong tendency not even to admit these students to the site.

However, our chapter leadership, and the UFT officials have stated they intend to float this again early in the next school year. It keeps on coming back like a bad penny, no matter how many times, and at how many meetings, we express our strong opposition. So we will have to keep up the struggle -- against merit pay, charterization, privatization, and all these schemes to chip away at public education for all.

Marjorie Stamberg

teacher,

GED-Plus

Manhattan Hub

A wow comment from a teacher on performance pay

At Eduwonkette, who says:

I had to excerpt this passionate comment on teacher performance pay. Rather than asking what its implications are for student achievement, this reader focused on what it means for teachers' personal and professional identities. This is an angle I'd never considered before - thank you, anonymous reader.

It starts out this way:
Look at places where teachers have been lured into these plans with money. The experiment always begins with apprehension, a sort of reluctance. The policy wonks explain that this fear is because the teachers have been brainwashed by the unions and don’t understand the science at work. Perhaps. It is also possible that experienced professionals know in their gut when something just feels wrong, even if they can’t explain why.

You can read the full comment here.

Will comments like these have an impact on the merit pay supporters in the UFT, the business world, or the ed commenter/policy wonk world? I doubt it. When you have an agenda, you have an agenda. Cogent arguments and logic be damned when you have all too ineffective teacher unions to kick around.

Leonie Haimson kicks this in:

You might take a look at this report on merit pay from Univ. of Ark.– the no. of teachers who felt duped even after initially approving the plan – and this of course is a very conservative bunch of researchers.

http://uark.edu/ua/der/Research/merit_pay/year_two.html.

Report w/ appendices here: http://uark.edu/ua/der/Research/merit_pay/year_two/Full_Report_with_Appendices.pdf

Excerpt:
A review of teacher statements revealed that 13 of the 22 teachers who commented on the climate of their school felt that the environment had become more negative as a result of merit pay. This was likely attributed to the fact that a large number of teachers did not receive a bonus (see Table 3), even though many of them stated that they were told that everyone in their school would receive something. …

“Teachers were handling things in their own classrooms. Everybody was happy to be here. And then...the merit pay fiasco. And it’s been hell here ever since.”

“I mean...it was ugly...it was just constant people mad. The people that didn't get anything were upset, and I don't blame them, especially since we were told that everybody was going to get something.”

However, seven teachers asserted that merit pay had a positive effect on the environment of the school, resulting in an increase in collaboration and staff morale.

Rumor on 55/25

Just in from a chapter leader:

Have you heard rumors that the 55/ 25 pension is being held up because those that be in charge want to raise the amount of money we would have to pay to opt in??

If you've heard anything, let us know.

When Weingarten announced the merit pay plan she said it was teamed with 55/25. Merit pay has been voted upon and is being put into effect while 55/25 pension plan is delayed. She spun this as a good thing at the last Del. Ass. – see, the longer the delay, the less you have to pay. But she promised there would not be one without the other. I'm just shocked she might have been a shade less than straightforward on this. Just shocked!

THIS JUST IN: Pension plan changed from 55/25 to 95/75. UFT argues this is a good thing as the DOE will allow those who die on the job to be buried on school grounds free of charge.

UPDATE: Sunday Feb. 3 from a CL:
At Middle school chapter leaders meeting last week, vp said that 55/25 is expected to be signed at the end of February or the beginning of March.

What Did Randi Know and When Did She Know It?

The shot that was heard around the NYC teaching corps was fired on Martin Luther King Day as teachers awoke to a front page article in the NY Times announcing that a secret program was in effect to evaluate teachers based on test scores.

Rather than argue the case against, we want to focus on the role, or lack of role the UFT has played.

With every passing day more and more teachers see that the UFT is not on their side but acts as an intermediary for the powers that be. In essence, they represent the interests of people like Bloomberg and Klein to the members, using obfuscation and confusion to give the members the impression they are on your side.

If you're asking why they function this way, we would have to delve into the history of the labor movement and the role union leaders have played to control the militancy of the members - militancy that could threaten their own power.

Randi Weingarten has known about the program for months but kept quiet about it - she claims she did not know the specific schools which we all know would have been easy for them to find out and warn the teachers. And even if they couldn't find out, a public exposure at the time would have allowed teachers in all schools to confront their principals and ask point blank if they were part of the program. That would have forced them to tell them or basically lie to their faces. At the very least the UFT could have thrown a monkey wrench into the DOE plans but chose the sounds of silence.

Therefore, view Randi Weingarten's words of outrage - I guess she wasn't all too outraged all these months - and promise to fight the plan as the usual empty words designed to obfuscate the issue and confuse the members.


Marjorie Stamberg has written a strong piece posted at the ICE blog:

DOE's Secret Plan for Merit Pay...Without the Pay!

Here are a few choice excerpts related to the UFT's role in all this:

Naturally they had to do it in secret.

The Times revealed that that the DOE has a program in which 2,500 teacher in 140 schools across the city are being evaluated on the basis of their students' test scores.

Did you know about this? Of course not. Because they've kept it under wraps. Now Randi has a statement out (on the UFT website), calling the secret program misguided and claiming it is in contradiction with the "commitment...to collaboration and working together.. in the School Wide Bonus Program." No, there's no contradiction--this is all part of the same program and the UFT leadership has acted as enablers.

The Times said that Randi Weingarten and the UFT knew about this secret program for months and said nothing to the teachers! In a quote, Randi said she could not reveal it because she was told "confidentially" by the DOE and did not know which specific schools were involved. She said she "had grave reservations about the project and would fight if the city tried to use the information for tenure or formal evaluations or even publicized it." (So now it's public--I wonder what she's going to do?)

But we should all ask our UFT reps what they knew about this secret plan and when they knew it.

As members of the UFT executive board, and as district UFT reps, were they informed about the existence of this program before today? Did they know about it when they were asking us to be part of this agenda? Or did Randi keep it from them as well?

I urge you to read the entire Stamberg piece.

Some of the best commentary is over at NYC Educator where his cohort Reality Based Educator did a piece yesterday - and make sure to read the comments.

ICE mail also had quite a bit of discussion and I'll put some of that up in a future post.

One of the themes of the Times piece is the usual "teacher quality is the most important determiner claptrap. Of course, Weingarten and her political cohorts the Clintons say this all the time, which puts the blame for failure clearly on the teacher. So I don't believe the UFT is against this plan philosophically.

But you know my view of Randi and the rest of the Unity Caucus crew is that they are 5th column collaborators, or, Vichyists, if you will.

Michael Fiorillo echos some of these thoughts in a post to ICE-mail:

Apparently, the UFT fundamentally seems to agree with them: rhetoric made for public consumption aside, they clearly support the "testing as achievement" regime, as confirmed by their support of a merit pay plan that enshrines testing, use of management-framed data in making tenure decisions, passivity regarding testing mandates stemming from NCLB, testing used in rating and school-closing decisions, etc.

This is what a "bi-partisan," "post-ideological" political landscape looks like: corporate self-interest and stealth privatization masquerading as "reform," and ambitious union misleaders helping them manage the transition.