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Thursday, February 19, 2015

Ed News you can use: Cuomo Adopts Bloomberg Ed Model, Astroturf groups rally to support him, UFT Rally Today at City Hall

United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew, Assembly education chairwoman Cathy Nolan and others will hold a press conference on the Campaign for Fiscal Equity this morning at City Hall a 11AM.
COMING UP: The U.F.T. is planning a citywide rally, in partnership with Class Size Matters and the Alliance for Quality Education, to protest Cuomo’s education proposals on Thursday, March 12.

The Northeast Charter Schools Network is launching a charter school “myth-busting” campaign in an attempt to dispel common criticisms of charters. The group is starting with the claim that charters are not public schools. The Network joined both Families for Excellent Schools and StudentsFirstNY yesterday in pushing for Cuomo’s education agenda. See the campaign here: http://bit.ly/1E6Jcfs .. Capital Education

Sure - they're public schools to get the money but not public schools when it comes to teacher qualifications or accountability equal to public school teachers or on issues such as discipline codes. See Raging Horse blog for more on AstroTurf: When is a “Grassroots” Organization a Front?

Here are selections from today's report from Capital Education, which you ought to subscribe to: jbakeman@capitalnewyork.com

CUOMO’S JOEL KLEIN EDUCATION AGENDA—Capital’s Eliza Shapiro: “Governor Andrew Cuomo’s ambitious, yet controversial education reform agenda picks up many of the loose threads left by former mayor Michael Bloomberg and former chancellor Joel Klein, two of the governor’s most direct ideological predecessors on education policy. Merit pay for teachers who help raise their students’ test scores, stricter teacher evaluations with more weight on exams, support for charter schools and little patience for struggling schools are national reform initiatives ushered into New York City during the decade Klein served as chancellor. Now, Cuomo is elevating those proposals to the state level, and assuming the mantle of education reform for New York as Bloomberg and Klein have disappeared and teachers' union-friendly de Blasio administration directs policy out of City Hall.”
—Their policies overlap in several key areas: on merit pay, Cuomo is proposed a $20 million “teacher excellence fund” to furnish $20,000 bonuses for “highly effective teachers.” Klein’s deal on merit pay with the union ultimately fell through. Bloomberg recommended linking teacher tenure with student test results in 2009; Cuomo has doubled down on that idea by recommending tenure be linked with teacher evaluations and that those evaluations be 50 percent comprised of student exam results.
—Klein and Bloomberg ensured the creation of New York City’s charter school sector, which has grown so quickly that the cap was extended by 114 schools in 2010. Cuomo has proposed to raise the cap, again, by 100 schools this year. Both Klein and Cuomo have embraced a no-excuses stance on failing schools and struggling teachers. Klein and Cuomo have also used almost identical language about the obstacles to removing teachers accused of ineffectiveness or misconduct. http://bit.ly/19ydwUy

PRO-CHARTER GROUPS MOBILIZE PARENTS ON CUOMO’S REFORMS—Capital’s Eliza Shapiro: “StudentsFirstNY held a rally in support of Governor Andrew Cuomo's education reform agenda today, as the well-organized, well-funded pro-charter sector attempts to answer the teachers' unions' criticisms of Cuomo. Several hundred parents, largely from district schools around the city and almost exclusively black, attended the rally at Medgar Evers College in Crown Heights on Wednesday evening, where Assemblyman and future Cuomo official Karim Camara and City Council member Robert Cornegy Jr. spoke. Cornegy, one of the few council members to show public support for Cuomo or the charter movement, got an energetic standing ovation from the audience on Wednesday.
After Cuomo outlined his education proposals in his State of the State address last month, much of the reaction has been provided by the teachers' unions and from the United Federation of Teachers in particular. Now, the pro-charter sector, which has been increasingly focused on failing schools and accountability over the last six months, is debuting a series of its own advocacy efforts, all of which are intended to mobilize parents, rather than teachers, in support of Cuomo's ‘opportunity agenda.’”
http://bit.ly/1vYKKqH

And here's another little gem pointing to how easy it is to bait Randi and put her on the defensive due to her constant waffling on the fence of ed deform.

CUOMO V. WEINGARTEN ON RECEIVERSHIP—Capital’s Jessica Bakeman: “Cuomo on Wednesday challenged American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten's position on state takeovers of failing schools, questioning why she would support a receivership model that has been implemented in Massachusetts but oppose a similar program in New York. … ‘The union, national union, supported the model in Massachusetts, because they said enough was enough and if Randi Weingarten can support it in Massachusetts, Randi Weingarten should support it in New York,’ Cuomo said.
“In a statement Wednesday, Weingarten said the receivership in Lawrence, Mass., a small city northwest of Boston, works well because the implementation has promoted collaboration. ‘I'm for parents, educators and communities having real voice in their children's public schools—the opposite of what the governor has called for,’ Weingarten, former president of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers, said.” [PRO] http://bit.ly/1yYW7t3

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"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Thursday, February 19, 2015