$220 Billion for Bail Out, Zilch for Schools

The Ed "reformers" always talk about accountability in terms of "no excuses" for poverty, large class sizes, etc. They are quick to support the billions for bailouts but say they can't waste money on lowering class size because they can't guarantee a quality teacher in every class.

How about not allowing a bank to open until there's a quality banker in each and every one? Are any of teh characters who led us into this crisis truly suffering? Poor guy at BearsStern- wealth fell to 12 million.

Under whose watch were laws passed during the depression to prevent the kinds of abuses we are seeing today repealed? I believe Mr. Clinton. And of course, followed up by the massive giveaway of the institutional protections to corporate interests.

If we had unions that stood up and exposed the practices that end up in bailouts ( Chrysler, savings and loan - one a decade) instead of collaborating, it all wouldn't be as easy for them.

If the UFT/AFT defended its members instead of seeking ways to cooperate in the dismantling of public education, they could have played a role in exposing some of the shams. But how can the UFT play at that level when they can't even defend teachers in their schools?

Not a word from the union about how 200 billion can be found for a bailout or how 2 trillion magically appears for a war. Instead of pointing out where the money is, the UFT/AFT buys into the phony accountability/reform movement and calls for tinkering at the edges.

We will see the UFT lead a rally at Tweed tomorrow begging for a few crumbs to be put back on the table while the Fed throws billions on the table for the financial industry.

The rally to restore the budget cuts would have a much better chance of succeeding if it were held at the Federal Reserve.

8th Grade Retention Battle at Tonight's PEP

It is the 4th anniversary of the Monday Night Massacre where 3 PEP members were fired by Bloomberg because they were going to vote against the 3rd grade retention. Since then, they've added 5th and 7th grade. It's all a crock. What happened to those kids who were held back? The DOE won't reveal - they have a study going supposedly that won't be completed until '09, just when these jokers are leaving office.

With Patrick Sullivan leading the charge and the Bronx PEP rep calling for a postponement of the vote at tonight's Panel for Educational Policy meeting at Tweed, expect the rubber stamp PEP to rubber stamp the BloomKlein policy.

As many have pointed out, ending social promotion is a political, not educational policy. All research shows the policy of holding kids over doesn't really work.

But individual schools (remember how they were empowered?) should make those decisions for each individual child at the school level. (Read this post from Have a Gneiss Day for a different perspective of a teacher needing the threat of holding kids over to get some work out of them.)

Take any 8th grade prospective holdover. My guess is that this is not the first time. Maybe it's been twice. The kid is practically a grandfather. My friend tells me about a 17 year old father to be in the 8th grade of a K-8 school. So the result will be an increased chance the kid drops out and never clogs one of the Gates schools with his or her presence.

And guess what? Their disappearance will make the high school grad rates go up.

Under Bloomberg schools are micromanaged and budgets cut...

... while the Construction Industry Gets to Run Around Like Free Range Chickens.

Sent this morning from a friend whose office is down the block:

Would have been interesting if I was in my office on Saturday. Top left with white wrapping is the building which used to have a crane. View is looking down 51st towards east river.

News from the Blogs

Grading the Schools on Terror – Under Assault writes
As long as everyone’s going around designing “grading” systems for schools – first Klein, now Weingarten — I’ve decided to make one up myself. I see it this way. When the staff lives in fear, they can’t do a good job. Simple as that.

A brilliant concept modeled on the alerts at Homeland Security at Under Assault.


Untamed Teacher
Moriah has entered the red zone as she gives a graphic illustration of the above with her running (and painful) account of her U-rating hearings. Make sure to read the comments from her online support group. I know Moriah's school and principal, who feels obligated to choose at least one teacher a year to humiliate and drive out of teaching. If there's a deity, one day her time will come.


Unity on the Couch
by John Powers at the ICE blog on the March DA and the GHI/HIP merger.

Unity at the DA is an interesting machine to observe. If it were to be rated according to the fairest and most practical methods used to evaluate classroom teaching and community building, it would undoubtedly receive an unsatisfactory rating. It rarely starts on time or ends on time. There is plenty of chalk and talk or just plain talk and no chalk. There is also no "accountable- talk" amongst delegates. Its agenda ("objectives") goes unchecked, unmet and off on tangential paths. Certain members of Unity feel comfortable hurling aloud words and moans meant to intimidate and stop others from voicing their ideas and disagreements about a given topic. All of the above, from my perspective, creates a culture that attempts to dumb delegates down, maintains the status-quo and ultimately makes it difficult to create a stronger, democratic union capable of beating back the no longer creeping, but rapidly advancing privatization of our school system.

http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/unity-on-couch.html

Leonie Haimson and the gang celebrate the 4th anniversary of the Monday Night Massacre at the PEP on St. Patrick's Day with the real St. Patrick (Sullivan) leading the opposition to the 8th grade holdover policy at the NYC Public School Parent's blog.

And the great Gary Babad at the same blog reports on Bloomberg's naming Elliott Spitzer to the post of Deputy Chancellor.


Have a Gneiss Day has a very hilarious (or very sad) post on recent parent teacher conferences.

Rubber Room on the Radio

David Bellel has put up the audio with a slide show of the this american life radio program – produced by Joe Richman, Anayansi Diaz-Cortes, and Samara Freemark at radiodiaries.
David combined images with the audio. Broadcast 3/1/08.

Part 1:

http://dbellel.blogspot.com/2008/03/rubber-room-from-radio-diaries-part-1.html

Part 2:

http://dbellel.blogspot.com/2008/03/rubber-room-from-radio-diaries-part-2.html

The trailer to the RR movie is here and here.

Spitzer Redux

Selections from ICE-mail on Spitzer:

Michael Fiorillo writes:

Now that the tsunami-like tide of revulsion and moralizing has ebbed somewhat, I have to say a few of things about this week's events.

The distaste many people have felt about Eliot Spitzer's behavior should not cloud their thinking about what has actually happened. A progressive elected official- at least by the debased standards that exist today - was destroyed for reasons having far less to do with his moral failings than with whom his enemies are. And federal law enforcement, financial institutions and the New York Times were complicit in it. This week's events suggest that powerful forces are aligned to see that those who have looted the country and enriched themselves over the demise of its actual, productive, wealth-producing patrimony will not be brought to account for the trillions of dollars they have stolen and the wealth they have destroyed.

Spitzer had many faults. As a teacher, I mistrusted him for his support of charter schools. He came off as arrogant and self-righteous. His using the state police to go after Joe Bruno was wrong and only served to make that old-school political crook seem sympathetic. And the way he satisfied his appetites, its affect on his family, is creepy and painful to watch.

Nevertheless, he signed the executive order giving city day care providers the right to union representation - a good thing Randi has accomplished, by the way -, fought for the humane position of allowing undocumented residents to obtain driver's licenses, was a strong supporter of women's reproductive rights. Most importantly, and the fundamental reason for his downfall and destruction, he was an aggressive opponent of "the malefactors of wealth." He successfully went after Wall Street in the aftermath of the last stock market and tech mania of the late 1990's. That he did it not to bring about the communal garden society we hope for, but to save those greedy sons of bitches from themselves, well, OK. But working people and the possibility of a more humane and democratic economy benefited from what he did.

The malfeasance behind the current financial crisis, and suffering that is sure to follow from it, will dwarf anything seen since the 1930's. That, and the war in Iraq, is the true degeneracy we should be talking about. My fear is that what happened to Spitzer is a taste of what's in store for any elected official who might raise a few questions. Every politician who might feel the dangerous temptation to act in defense of the public interest must now wonder whether their every banking and credit card transaction is being fed directly to law enforcement, to be later later leaked to the Times.

Will David Patterson, Andrew Cuomo and others take the hint?

Best,
Michael Fiorillo
Chapter Leader, Newcomers HS, Long Island City

George Schmidt replies

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Now about that New York Times part.

For the past decade, we've been watching here while otherwise intelligent people think that clippings from the Times equals some kind of "research." As we've noted over and over, without the Times, Paul Vallas would still be a small town hack in Springfield Illinois. Thanks to the Times, he went from "school
reform" in Chicago to Philadelphia to New Orleans. Ditto charter schools.

We need our own media.

Yesterday would have been nice.

Today is too late.

By Monday, when Wall Street gets hit with the next wave of this tsunami (if Bear is down, can Merrill be far behind?) we'd better be able to get some facts fast from other than the most official ruling class sources.

This is going to be ugly, uglier, and ugliest.

Elliot Spitzer was in every way a fool. When I was growing up in Jersey (Elizabeth, Linden, Newark) "down the shore" included three beers people. (In those days, they were called things we no longer share on e-mail). Three beers and you were in bed.

And New York's millionaire governor paid $4,000 for that?

Lot of growing up to do, we have.

Lot of learning to do the hard way, we will.

Yoda said.

George N. Schmidt
Editor, Substance
www.substancenews.net


Woodlassnyc adds:

I guess I have to disagree somewhat. You say: " My fear is that what happened to Spitzer is a taste of what's in store for any elected official who might raise a few questions."

True, but some people in government (alas, not enough of them these days) don't do things like structure money transactions and visit sex workers.

Whereas I agree with you and George that negative forces went after Spitzer and that they seem to be a part of a much larger syndicate of corrupt people, Spitzer did do harm â€" to his family, his constituents, and his office. It looks like he broke some laws as well. We do not need these people to run our government and put others in jail. We have to elect the ones that are fundamentally moral, as well as being crime free. Is that too radical? If it is, we may as well give up.

Woodlass followed up with this:

The most recent Greg Palast mailing connected some dots for me along the lines of what Mike was saying, including some stuff I didn't know, so here's a few paragraphs from it:

Then, on Wednesday of this week, the unthinkable happened. Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Who? That's Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James Baker, Senior Counsel. Notable partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators, potentates, pirates and presidents than you can count.

The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure . .. Not one family was saved – but not one banker was left behind.

Every mortgage sharking operation shot up in value. Mozilo's Countrywide stock rose 17% in one day. The Citi sheiks saw their company's stock rise $10 billion in an afternoon.

And that very same day the bail-out was decided – what a coinkydink! – the man called, `The Sheriff of Wall Street' was cuffed. Spitzer was silenced.

Do I believe the banks called Justice and said, "Take him down today!" Naw, that's not how the system works. But the big players knew that unless Spitzer was taken out, he would create enough ruckus to spoil the party. Headlines in the financial press – one was "Wall Street Declares War on Spitzer" - made clear to Bush's enforcers at Justice who their number one target should be. And it wasn't Bin Laden. __._,_._

The entire piece is worth reading or listening too - it's a podcast.

The link is here:
http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/

I would say this about "any elected official who might raise a few questions–" Keep it in your pants or just shut up.

Michael followed with this:

My intention was not to condone or minimize what Spitzer did, but to suggest some of the possible intentions among those who brought him down, and the wider purposes it served.

What I should have also mentioned was the poiltical hypocrisy of Spitzer's situation versus, for example, Louisiana Rep. Vitter, who admitted to patronizing prostitutes and remains in Congress.

Fair treatment under the law?

As for politicians keeping it in the pants, Norm, that seems unlikely: their narcissism, their overlapping libido and will-to-power seems to make it almost impossible

Best,
Michael Fiorillo

My response:

Michael is right about politicians keeping it in their pants. I should have said they should try to use their brains when they are potential targets.

I compare it to teachers who decide to become active politically. no, I'm not talkign about keeping it in their pants, but about making sure all their i's are dotted and their t's crossed when it comes to not leaving themselves open to anything obvious in terms of latesess, absence, getting work in on time, etc. Though we know things can and will be trumped up, don't give them more ammo.

I quetion whether Palast is making Spitzer out to be much more of a crusader than he really is.
Was Spitzer was truly out to fight Wall St or just use his fight to make some political hay? He did things selectively and went after people for what often seemed like personal pique.
His games and dishonesty with campaign finances, many lies, etc. raised a red flag a long time ago.

I'll add to this as more comes in and post a link on the sidebar.

Ed Notes take on the Spitzer saga the day after is here.

Jumping Checker

Susan Graham blogging at A Place at the Table at this link with a post called "Lessons Not Learned"and Nancy Flanagan at Teacher in a Strange Land lay some big ones on Chester Finn (known affectionately as "Checker") who recently came out with a book called Troublemaker.

For those who are not aware, Finn is one of the ideological gurus of the corporate takeover and marketization of public schools. We dumped Rothstein on him at the Manhattan Institute Luncheon a few weeks ago. Read the piece at this link which included our parody of The Band's The Weight:

Crazy Chester went on and on, and he made me see through the fog.
He said, "If you accept KIPP, you’ll be allowed to eat your hot dog."
I said, "Wait a minute, Chester, you know KIPP can’t educate em all."
He said, "That's okay, boy, we’ll take 70% and public ed will take a fall"

Unlike me, Susan is serious and goes after Checker where it hurts. Read the entire piece at this link and the comments, but here are some excerpts:

He "is usually styled as an “education guru” because he is a Hoover Institute Fellow and President of The Fordham Foundation where he contributes regularly to The Education Gadfly. For something like three decades, he has been more than willing to explain to people in positions of power exactly what is wrong with public education."

After attending Phillips Exeter Academy ( pricey now, pricey then) and earning bachelor and master degrees from Harvard (ditto), it must have been pretty traumatic to discover he couldn’t cut it in a public high school classroom [Finn taught one year and couldn't hack it] .... Finn says he "came to realize that, if I were going to make a difference in American education, it wouldn’t be at the retail level."

I wonder...why he derives such pleasure in styling himself as a gadfly (meddler, busybody, pest, nuisance) and a troublemaker. I spend my day with people of persistence, character, leadership and courage. (Many, Finn might be surprised to learn, are also smart and well-educated.) They are classroom teachers. They didn’t give up after a year. They come back to the classroom every day to try to improve the lives of their students. Some of them are amazing. Some of them struggle. But they are sticking around and putting in the time it takes to become accomplished teachers. Finn went back to Harvard and got a doctorate in Education Administration and Policy. And while I may not be qualified to question the screening process for the doctoral program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I wonder about it. If a new CPA fails to survive an entry level job at an accounting firm, is the obvious path to skip the “retail” level and go back for a PhD. in Economics? Perhaps so. Perhaps this explains something about the quality and practicality of education policy today.

...those of us out here on the front lines could do without professional Troublemakers who leverage their privileged backgrounds, elitist education, and the contacts that go with them into careers directing the campaign from the rear. Public education is serious business. The future of our economy, government, and people depend on it. If Finn is serious about determining what works and what doesn’t, perhaps he should spend less time posturing in the plush chairs of non-profit think tanks, or the marble halls of government, and a little more time in quiet contemplation, observing and listening to the teachers, school administrators, and students who spend their days in our public schools.

In this excerpt, Nancy Flanagan hits Checker with this right cross:

I will never win any smarter-than-thou contests, Checker, but I made good use of my free and low-cost public education. In the post-war decades there have been millions of teachers like me: upwardly mobile, hard-working, intellectually curious, still dedicated to the idea that education is the ticket out of poverty, and still committed to kids who are less than intrigued by a classic, liberal-arts college preparatory curriculum or getting up at 3:00 a.m. to read Beowulf.

Sorry that your first teaching job didn’t work out, what with all those discipline problems, probably resulting from kids already irreparably scarred by their dreadful public school system. I’m not so sure that a strong syllabus or demanding accountability measures would have made a difference in your sense of efficacy—although a good mentor may have helped. One of the lessons I’ve absorbed is that nobody learns how to teach well in a single year. I am always mystified by pundits who suggest that putting graduates from our most prestigious colleges into our toughest schools with little training or on-site assistance is a good idea.

My first year of teaching wasn’t all that I hoped for, either, but I stayed with it, because (as you yourself noted) persistence counts. I came to love teaching, and was very good at it, for more than 30 years. I persisted because I had tangible evidence, every day, of my impact on real children and a real school. Later in my career, I worked for two years at a national education non-profit. I attended lots of conferences and meetings—saving the world one white paper at a time—but discovered that the real juice in education reform comes from the work with kids, and went back to the classroom.

The NY Sun's Elizabeth Green has written a review of Finn's book, giving just a little bit too much credit.

Two Awful Opeds in NY Times

David Bellel places Andrew Rotherham/Eduwonk in his true role as a high-priced hooker for the phony Ed reform establishment. Anyone surprised that he loves the UFT leadership (see Vera Pavone's piece on this aspect posted March 18 here)?
Hmmm. Anyone got a good pimp picture?

Anyway, here is Leonie Haimson's take on the Op Eds in the NY Times from last Sunday (March 9.)

Highlights:

"Nice to have such so-called “balanced” opinions in our newspaper of record. Shows how strong the rightward drift has been." "Between this and the Sunday Roundtable discussion of how helpful it is when billionaires “disrupt” our schools, the NY times appears to have lost any pretense of a balanced perspective – or any anchor to reality."

The first is called “Educators or Kingmakers? “ by David White, a “adjunct scholar” at the Lexington Institute, a libertarian think tank. (Apparently, White’s main job is working for “Keybridge Communications, a boutique public relations service that works with free-market think tanks around the world.” see http://www.americasfuture.org/aff-team.php )

Here’s an excerpt: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/opinion/10white.html?th&emc=th

“Forty percent of teachers leave the classroom within their first five years on the job — in some measure because they don’t stand to gain the same performance-based pay raises available to their private-sector counterparts. Merit pay would help public schools retain good teachers by paying them more. But the unions have fought against such measures.

There is no research to show that merit pay helps reduce teacher attrition– in fact the evidence from states like North Carolina and Florida suggests the reverse, as merit pay tends to penalize and stigmatize teachers who work in low-performing schools w/ high needs students.

And : “The same can be said about school choice. Despite compelling evidence that it improves student achievement, the national teachers’ unions regularly stand against the policy. “

Again, there is no such evidence that “choice” meaning vouchers, improves student achievement. Even some of the most conservative theorists on education – eg. Sol Stern – have moved away from that position.

The other oped is called “Teaching Change” by the well-known polemicist, Andrew Rotherham, Eduwonk himself.

While he purportedly praises the UFT and some other unions for adopting merit pay and establishing their own charter schools, he proposes creating “a portfolio of contracts to match a portfolio of schools” that would supposedly “give parents better options and re-energize teachers’ unions as an agent of progress.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/opinion/10rotherham.html?ref=opinion

Nice to have such so-called “balanced” opinions in our newspaper of record. Shows how strong the rightward drift has been. Rather unsettling that now the mainstream explanation for the purported low-performance of our urban schools has become the teachers union.

The existence of such unions somehow don’t seem to hamper suburban schools from high achievement levels, but is somehow the root of all our problems in low-performing urban schools – not their high-needs populations, not their huge class sizes and overcrowded conditions, not the immense student loads that most teachers are saddled with, not the lack of commitment on the part of our elected leaders to replicate the conditions under which suburban schools thrive, but supposedly the lack of “choice” and the low skills of our urban teachers.

Between this and the Sunday Roundtable discussion of how helpful it is when billionaires “disrupt” our schools, the NY times appears to have lost any pretense of a balanced perspective – or any anchor to reality.

Leonie Haimson
Class Size Matters

"I Blame the NY Times"

A NYC teacher, a Teaching Fellow from one of the first cohorts who after 5 years moved west and is still teaching, writes:

Out here, I hear that the union (AFT) is terribly weak and ineffectual. It actually sounds much worse than in NYC. It's like younger teachers in NYC-- they've been well-conditioned to not expect rights as a union member. As a charter school teacher, I'm not unionized.

What makes steam come out of my ears is that people here will say things like, "Oh, I heard Bloomberg's really doing a great job with the schools in NYC." You realize how strong hype and PR can be.

I blame the New York Times for this. They love their CEO mayor and they celebrate most of the bullshit he and Klein put out about the schools. I mean, really, these test score "improvements" are not really valid, statistically, and it doesn't take an advanced degree to see it. Put reporters on the ground, in the classrooms, at the meetings, etc., and the emperor's new clothes are revealed. It's just not that complicated. And, what, they reorganized, again????

Eduwonk Gets Wonked - Et tu NY Times?

Vera Pavone responds to the NY Times triple whammy on Sunday and Monday. As an example of the kind of reporting that doesn't fit the Times' agenda, check out these companion pieces posted at Norm's Notes.

The St. Petersburg Times reports:
60 of 67 Florida districts walk away from fed funds to reward teachers for performance pay.

Teacher Paul Moore's piece on the closing of Florida's once star charter school.

Florida has weak unions and had a pro-corporate governor and 8 years to experiment. How come all the schemes that are coming apart at the seams in the sunny state are ignored by the national press? The Times' former NYC lead ed reporter Abby Goodnough became the Miami bureau chief a while ago. See any stories in the Times about the "results" of the corporate model in Florida? Don't hold your breath.

Guest Editorial
by Vera Pavone

The NY Times Open Ed page of March 10 delivered a one-two punch from Andrew Rotherham (Eduwonk in photo paying tribute to Eduwonkette) and David White (Lexington Institute).

In an introduction to Rotherham’s diatribe against teacher unionism he talks about the success of teachers at two Denver schools in challenging “how time was used, hiring and even pay,” which “ran afoul of the teachers’ contract”.

“While laws like No Child Left Behind take the rhetorical punches for being a straitjacket on schools, it is actually union contracts that have the greatest effect over what teachers can and cannot do. These contracts can cover everything from big-ticket items like pay and health care coverage to the amount of time that teachers can spend on various activities….Reformers have long argued that this is an impediment to effective schools.”

Of course “reformers” here refer to people who want to micromanage teachers, get them to buy into the latest corporate-backed educational program, and force them to work harder and longer. What is the impediment? Are the reformers referring to the number of classes that a teacher teaches? the five-day workweek? the ability to have a free lunch period and preparation periods, a summer vacation, a limited work day?

“Most contracts are throwbacks to when nascent teacher unionism modeled itself on industrial unionism. Then, that approach made sense and resulted in better pay, working conditions and an organized voice. Yet schools are not factories. The work is not interchangeable and it takes more than one kind of school to meet all students’ needs. If teachers’ unions want to stay relevant, they must embrace more than one kind of contract.”

It is the “reformers” who are turning schools into factories (large and small) by insisting on programs that emphasize education-as-test-preparation, high stakes testing, mandated programs, pacing requirements, room arrangements, scripted learning, and adherence to the latest educational jargon. In order to complete the task these “reformers” have colluded with union leaders in various schemes to marginalize and then get rid of experienced teachers whose wealth of skills and knowledge is the only bulwark against this new corporate factory school model.

Rotherham cites how New York City and its union are moving in the right direction by modifying the contract in having a “pay for performance” program in 170 schools and allowing charter schools to have longer days. And he shows how Randi Weingarten has jumped on board by inviting Green Dot to bring their charter outfit to New York.

So, we have it!

Reform equals longer school days plus merit pay.

Most of all reform equals the evisceration of the union contract and unionism itself while at the same time forcing the factory model on teachers and children. And UFT president Weingarten’s support of charter schools and willingness to give up contractual protections for teachers makes her “relevant”, that is, useful to those who want to undermine a truly effective educational system.

White, in “Educators or Kingmakers?” whines about teacher unions determining educational policy because of their political power. Too bad, he says, because the union agenda is often counter to interests of students and teachers. Citing “research”, White claims that (1) union contracts protect ineffective teachers, which leads to poorer student performance; (2) unions fight against merit pay which means that teachers who would stay if they were paid more for performance are deciding instead to leave; (3) unions are against the policy of school choice which improves student achievement.

There have been many challenges to the research claims of the well-funded foundations that teacher quality and school choice are the key elements in improving education. What is truly appalling is that the Times basically ignores these challenges, but what is even more appalling is the silence of UFT leaders.

The day after these op-ed pieces appeared there was a full-page ad paid for by the “Center for Union Facts” on page 15 of the Times which calls teacher unions the biggest bully in schools: “Teacher unions bully principals into keeping bad teachers, scare politicians who support school reform, and block efforts to pay great teachers higher pay.”

It is clear who the bullies are: The corporate backed foundations, eduwonks, and educational “experts” who use dubious statistics and studies to manufacture “facts”, and the politicians and their appointed underlings who take credit for manipulated test scores and push a self-serving agenda.

Teachers have become increasingly demoralized because of the climate of dishonesty and fear that permeates the vast majority of our schools and undermines their ability to teach. Our union leaders have chosen to play a very weak defense, letting these bullies run over our members, and allowing them to destroy public education.

Vera Pavone, an ICE founding member, is a retired secretary and former teacher and had 2 children who attended NYC public schools.

Photoshopping by Eduwonkette at http://eduwonkette2.blogspot.com/2007/09/eduwonk-salutes-eduwonkette.html

ED NOTE: See the companion pieces preceding and following this one on how the NY Times is viewed by current and former teachers in the NYC school system.

Trusting Elizabeth, Not the NY Times

Recently, a potentially hot news story was broached to some people in ICE. The first reporter they asked for was the NY Sun's Elizabeth Green. Told she was on vacation, the sources said they would wait for her return. They specifically said the NY Times would be the last place they would go because they are not to be trusted.

The view out there is that the Times is a shill for BloomKlein. Not only BloomKlein, but the UFT too. In other words, the Times ignores the views of the anti-BloomKlein forces and the alternate views within the union.

Witness the narrow op-eds and magazine section that presented the voice of the mayor without a hint of alternatives.

Green, working for a paper that is so clearly to the right of the so-called "liberal" Times, has been allowed much free reign to report on a number of issues that the Times would never allow its reporters to touch. After all, the policies of BloomKlein have to be protected.

Note: this is not to be viewed as a condemnation of the Times Ed reporters. The lack of coverage or the narrowness of the reporting must be blamed on the breakdown of the wall between editorial and reporting at the Times. Kudos to the NY Sun for keeping that wall intact.

See our follow up guest piece critiquing the Rotherham op-ed.

Debating Mayoral Control

A debate on mayoral control has been heating up at the NYC Education News Listserve, where I have been arguing against a centralized system - I haven't seen anyone show one that has worked in an urban setting. Of course, no one has shown a decentralized one that has worked either.

Parent activist Lisa Donlon's testimony at the City Council hearings last week was pro decentralization. It is posted on Norm's Notes here.

But most of the people who have vehemently opposed BloomKlein are still in favor of a centralized system which gives most control to the mayor, with checks and balanced. The arguments against a decentralized system come in these forms:

Leonie Haimson says:
As the CFE case revealed, there are systemic deficiencies in the NYC public school system that need to be addressed systemically. It will never be possible to solve overcrowding and class size problems at the local level – just as it would not be possible for each community to effectively address crime or sewage or transportation on its own. It takes real citywide leadership and resources to do this.

Other issues probably can and should be addressed at the local level, in order to give communities more of a say in the running of their own schools. But certain basic conditions must be met.

Eugene Falik says:
As the CFE case revealed, there are systemic deficiencies in the NYC public school system that need to be addressed systemically. It will never be possible to solve overcrowding and class size problems at the local level – just as it would not be possible for each community to effectively address crime or sewage or transportation on its own. It takes real citywide leadership and resources to do this.

My response:
We should not leave questions related to local controls 'till later: a key one is: who gets to choose the school's principal? This is the single most important decision that can be made at that level and no matter what the larger issues, that decision should be made at the school level (I see some plans floated to have that decision made by a local Supt (appointed by central?) or local councils, which can also be subject to political influence.

Teachers at the school level -- not at a level where the UFT leadership gets to have influence - must be involved.

That assures the egomaniacs, abusive, manipulating, politically ambitious people who were appointed under both the old decentralization and the current centralized system would be kept under control.

If we ignore this aspect and jump for a checked and balanced mayoral control at the macro level but leave these local issues that are of major importance to everyone with a child in a school and to every teacher, we are not making much of a change.

Without such a system, the wars that occur when so many Leadership Acad. principals take over schools would be less likely since principals would be responsible to the constituency they serve. For an example, read the saga of PS 106Q in Rockaway, link posted in the sidebar of the ed notes blog.

In many parts of Europe, principals are elected by teachers and parents. I visited one such school in northwestern Spain a few years ago and it was an eye opener. Even the students had a say.

On decentralization, Falik said:

I think that "Decentralization" was an unmitigated disaster. While children in some areas of the city didn't get the education that they were entitled to, most children did get a good education -- better than most children in the country.

Decentralization resulted in all children getting a far worse education. If anything, I would pass a law returning to the pre-decentralization anything, with a revamped Board of Education. Perhaps appointed with a fixed term in office, or perhaps elected city-wide via proportional representation.

I think that what ever law enacts the changes should, by law, enact the curricula, etc. in place on the day before decentralization took effect. Of course, the new BOE should be allowed to make changes, but we need an immediate return to a competent structure.

My response:

If we judge decentralization to have been a disaster based on the unevenness of how it worked in various districts, then what word do we use to describe mayoral control? Unmitigated is too mild a word.

What was wrong with decentralization was the way political machines seized local control of the schools. At least you knew who the thieves were. At times things like pianos were stolen and in my district $7 million was directed to religious schools. If the central authorities had done their job they would have monitored all this. Under mayoral control, billions may have gone to political friends with little transparency. Give me the thief I can look in the eye every month at a school board meeting.

Why look back at what was and instead think of a system of local control that could work that would eliminate the control by political machines. Let the teachers and parents at a school really choose the principals, which eliminate a big patronage plum. Also, teacher certification can come centrally.

Going down the path of centralized control, even to the "good old days" before '68 will also be a disaster - remember there were calls for change because that system wasn't working too well either - it was the system I first started under so I had a brief taste.

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!

Spitzer Does as Spitzer Says

I didn't vote for Spitzer.
Everyone said we had to in order to save public education.
The UFT led the cheers.
Spitzer even came to a Delegate Assembly.
I didn't trust him for the way he treated people.
He could create sympathy for a slime bag like Joe Bruno.
Another rich guy buying his way to power.
Believe me, this prostitution thing is the least bad thing he did.
There aren't enough bad things that can happen to him.
There are few politicians, if any, I trust.
I don't remember who I voted for.
Certainly not a Republican.
Did I waste my vote?
I think not.

PS 106 Redux

Here is a section of a piece that appeared in my School Scope column in The Wave on Friday, March 7. The rest of the column included sections published on this blog here (Why Doesn't Queens borough pres. appoint a member of the PEP) and here (Tweed closes UFT, opens 6 unions in its place).

Will the PS 106 story ever die? Guess not. There’s so much going on – much of which we can’t write about to protect people from retaliation. To summarize: My Feb. 8 column (Queen Bee Meets Queen Bee) talked about Randi Weingarten’s visit to the school where she was not given the warmest welcome by principal Marcella Sills, who has created a war-like atmosphere in the school between her and many teachers and teachers and parents. We also reported the charges by teachers that she forged their names to observations that never took place.

A week later, The Wave printed a story abut a parent protest over some things Weingarten supposedly said at the meeting (PS 106 Parents: UFT Says 'Sabotage Test Scores'), which was looked at as a vote of confidence in Sills, though few parents attended the protest (the PA president pointed out the low turnout was due to the short notice given to parents who have to work.) Some teachers feel the “protest” had Sills’ fingerprints all over it.

Teachers report that of the things Sills did upon taking over the school was drive out the old PA and put in her own brand, but this is standard operating procedure for many principals in schools without a very active parent base.

In that same Feb. 15 edition, Michael Catron, a learning leader/certified volunteer – what exactly is that – wrote a letter castigating me for my column, even calling me a moron. My joke response on Feb. 22 that I was a moron – more-on than off – GET IT – about events at PS 106 – apparently gave the wrong impression I was agreeing with Catron. Teachers have said it is not clear what exactly Catron does at the school. But they raise the same questions about others in the building who are close to Sills and seemingly have duties that are hard to pin down.

The story continued last week in The Wave’s “My Turn” column with teacher M. Baum, a reading specialist at PS 106, taking both Catron and the parent protest to task with a scathing critique of Sills, a very gutsy thing to do. Baum is an 18-year vet who teachers say has been sitting in the school without being given an assignment. Our independent inquiries are that she is a very caring, extremely capable teacher who is on the wrong side of the political tracks.

Here is a brief section from her extensive report:
Mr. Cantron refers to Ms. Sills being covered with tears, snot and vomit during the course of a day. This is so absurd, it’s actually funny. Ms. Sills spends most of her day in her office with minimal close contact with the early childhood population who might possibly get to soil her suits, however with a school nurse on premises, this is highly unlikely.

There has been an awful lot of mud-slinging going on of late. Our teachers have been “bad mouthed” and slandered before the parent body. Spreading false rumors about professional hard working staff is hitting me and my colleagues below the belt as well. Sending letters to parents claiming teachers are abusing students (unproven and undocumented) is not only underhanded and deplorable, it is pure slander. This is a way to initiate a riot and negative impressions and it is not reflective of an interest into an honest investigation to seek the truth.

Sills is a graduate of the dreaded Leadership Academy, where prospective principals are trained with an attack dog mentality to go after experienced (higher salaried) teachers using certain techniques that may include water boarding. Baum better wear a scuba mask.

You know the drill: immediately target some teachers for harassment, mostly senior, to put fear into the rest of the staff and start forcing people out. If you have to use forgery, go right ahead. Bring in younger inexperienced, teachers who will be easily intimidated.

Make sure to purge the former parents association, which might have allegiance to the old principal and set them against those “horrible” teachers.

It is only a rumor that LA people are given a pet animal which they must kill before they are allowed to graduate.

Word is that the Wave stories have sparked some interest from the higher ups, who couldn’t give a crap until stuff gets into the press. They want people to cool it, but this will not happen without an olive branch from Sills, whose future career cannot be helped by these revelations.

Sills is not without her supporters amongst the teachers – the very same newer people she has brought in. Word to the wise: when all the older teachers have been purged, watch out! Your turn will come.

Follow the entire PS 106Q chronology and on going story here. The link is also posted on the sidebar.

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

Mayoral Control No Better With Checks and Balances

Even some of the severest critics of Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein - many of them on Leonie Haimson's NYC education news listserve, the epicenter of activist parent and politico resistance to Tweed - have called for a continuation of mayoral control, but with tweaks - like some system of checks and balances.

I was amazed to hear testimony from some of these people that even called for an ''Independent'' Board with a majority appointed by the mayor - HUH? They say that this appointment should be for a specific term of office so the mayor can't remove them - HUH2? Like any mayor would take a chance and appoint anyone who would dare make waves.

Let's not automatically throw away local control without thinking of ways to fix it.

These critics actually make the point that Bloomberg and Klein suffer from some kind of personality defect and another mayor would be much more open to parental involvement. HUH3?

What they've failed to do is point to one place in this nation where such a system has not caused the same kind of conflict as here between parents and teachers. San Diego, St. Louis (under Alvarez and Marsal), Philadelphia (Paul Vallas playing Joel Klein who originally placed Paul Vallas), Washington (Michele Rhee playing Joel Klein), Baltimore (no mayoral control yet but with Andres Alonso playing his former boss Joel Klein), and the granddaddy of them all, Chicago, which for 13 years has had Mayor Daley playing himself and his appointed CEOs, non educator Paul Vallas, followed by Arne Duncan (good at basketball and with a connected mom.)

The problem is mixing education with politics. Turning a system over to a mayor who has his/her career tied to ''results'' - and I use the expression loosely because they use these results in the narrowest way - is the problem, not the solution. They want anyone but educators, who can see through the scams, involved in making decisions. Thus they appoint anyone but an educator - lawyers, business people, military people.

Coming soon to lead a major urban school system: a former president of the United States who proved he is eligible by once running a baseball team - oh, and is married to a former teacher. Hell, if Hillary can claim experience based on her husband in the White House, why not W as an educator?

The UFT Delegate Assembly

Early reports on the March Delegate Assembly was that the UFT passed a resolution in support of the Puerto Rican teachers. Considering info coming in as recently as last Friday, this did not seem very likely and we look forward to getting the full story. Can this be a sign of an opening move on Randi's part to offer an olive branch to FMPR in an attempt to wool them back to the AFT? Can it be that Change to Win and Dennis Rivera have opened up a border war and Randi has decided to put up a fight for the 45,000 members as a sign of the new leadership in the AFT to come?

On other issues at the March DA, which I didn't attend due to my being in London meeting with the Queen, who has asked me to manage the Crown's financial affairs on the recommendation of Michael Bloomberg (thanks for the biz, Mike), we will soon be hearing from a gaggle of people - check the ICE blog for the latest.

In the meantime, Marian Swerlow was kind enough to share her extensive notes from the Feb. DA and even though the March DA is already passed, it is worth reading these to get the full context of what is going on. For many years when I published the hard copy of Ed Notes, Marian's DA reports were a regular feature. Marian's analysis is her own and not that of TJC of which she is one of the leaders.

One point I would add to her report is the almost insane reaction of Unity to ICE's attempt to place an item calling for a motion on reopening the contract on letter in the file over an increase in U-ratings (which the UFT denies.) Since we published the reso on our blogs and Randi is one of our main readers (maybe the only) Unity rushed out their own toothless version (oh, the poor trees that die for their hubris) and unveiled it at around 6pm when Randi filibustered the New Motion period to that time (she said she HAD to do the new motion so she would not have to read about her cancelling the time (as she did a few times this year) on this blog. Shouldn't she be spending ALL her time trying to get Hillary elected?)

This all got me into some hot water with some of my ICE colleagues because I was the one who is always in favor of putting out stuff out there in advance but my buddies argue that Unity is so weak in thinking on their feet, we should just bang them with the stuff the day of the DA. I used to do some of the same stuff at DA's, hiding behind someone bigger and just holding my card up. Then I used to move around the room but they seemed to have spotters. I was ready to come in drag but luckily retired.


UFT February Delegate Assembly Report
February 6, 2008
by Marian Swerdlow
UFT Delegate, FDR High School, Brooklyn

(The views expressed in these notes are those of the author alone. They do not necessarily reflect the positions of any caucus.)

Perhaps the best part of the lamentable D.A. experience is that when you walk in the door, almost a dozen UFT members are handing out caucus literature, individual screeds, resolutions or proposed amendments. Since the discussion on the floor is almost completely controlled by Weingarten's rigid chairing, this is the freest part of the D.A.

On Feb. 6, the lit being distributed included Norm Scott's half-page of Ed Notes, asking such trenchant questions as "how [could] the UFT [have] supported Clinton without going through an official endorsement process" and "Did [New Action] mention how many of the NA leadership are on the UFT payroll?" New Action, the Unity-caucus sponsored "opposition" had a leaflet, too, which (no surprise) "asks you to support all resolutions on today's agenda." Another UFT member was giving out a "Resolution Protesting Repression Against Puerto Rican Teachers." The FMPR, which represents teachers there, broke several years ago with the AFT (the UFT's parent union, controlled by the national counterpart of the Unity caucus). It violated Puerto Rico's version of the Taylor Law by authorizing a strike after two years of working without a contract, so the government decertified it (took away its legal right to represent the teachers). My own caucus, Teachers for a Just Contract, was there with the rest, handing out a leaflet calling on members to organize to "defend the rights Weingarten and Unity haven't gotten around to giving back yet." And, of course, Unity was there with a leaflet boasting about its "achievements": the 55/25 retirement option they've wringing mileage out of since 2005 and the right to remove letters from the file after three years (which in 2005 replaced our previous, much more useful, right to grieve "unfair, inaccurate" material immediately).

President Weingarten began her "President's Report" by talking about the NY Times' story on January 21 exposing the fact that as many as 2,500 teachers in 140 schools were being rated by the DoE by their students' progress on tests. The DoE was considering how to use the data collected this way: "While officials say it is too early to determine how they will use the data, which is already being collected, they say it could eventually be used to help make decisions on teacher tenure or as a significant element in performance evaluations and bonuses. And they hold out the possibility that the ratings for individual teachers could be made public. ‘If the only thing we do is make this data available to every person in the city — every teacher, every parent, every principal, and say do with it what you will — that will have been a powerful step forward,' said Chris Cerf, the deputy schools chancellor who is overseeing the project. ‘If you know as a parent what's the deal, I think that whole aspect will change behavior.'"

The most shocking part of the story for some of us, however, was that "the United Federation of Teachers, the city's teachers' union, has known about the experiment for months." Weingarten tried to spin this, claiming, "I told you I was worried about it." She hammered away at the message that it could not be used for tenure decisions. But if it were, all the UFT would do is bring a lawsuit. And that could help only when est scores were explicitly cited when the teacher was refused tenure. What if other pretexts were given for denying tenure, when test scores were the real reason? The UFT could do nothing then. And, perhaps more galling, the DoE is threatening to "make this data available to every person in the city": a shaming technique which would have a powerful negative effect on the teachers. Weingarten said nothing about stopping the DoE from doing this, because it can't be done with a lawsuit. It would take the kind of militant pressure she's spent her years in office downplaying. Perhaps she did tell the D.A. she was worried about this experiment, but she should have made it clear to the DoE that the union opposed this, and mobilized us to prevent it.

At Weingarten's wish, the agenda was shifted so that two resolutions she wanted would be "rolled into" her president's report, one on this "value added" testing pilot program, and the other on the across-the-board cuts to the budgets of each and every school - 1.75% immediately and another 5% in September - that had been announced suddenly to principals that week. Kit Wainer, who was our ICE-TJC candidate for UFT President back in the spring, commented to me that these cuts, "are the City's answer to the court's decision in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case ordering more funding for schools. They show the complete failure of the UFT's strategy of using the courts to increase school funding, and that only a militant strategy can succeed."

"There is a real worry about the economy," Weingarten began, citing a "stress on schools. Politicians are doing budget cuts. On the state level, Spitzer did not do a budget cut. CFE equals contracts for excellence. They all said it was solved. The amount to New York City schools was $4.3 billion over the next five years. This is what Spitzer did: contracts for excellence, $2.3 billion this year to be used for smaller class sizes, middle school reform, the rest is operating expenses. Plus the mayor pledged $2.2 billion, of which $1.5 billion is for ‘fair student funding.' In December, contracts for excellence were done, and the most important feature was that in K to 3, average class size was supposed to be twenty, 4 through 12, 23, in the next four years.
"So, what happened?" she continued, "January was a big setback, budget wise. The state, Spitzer has pledged not to put in a tax increase. So he said, we aren't going to cut the budget, but we cannot give you everything we promised. Three hundred instead of five hundred million dollars. We said, yes, we understand, there is a downturn, but the money has to be restored. Number two, building, how to lower class size if we don't have the buildings? That is why we supported Bloomberg's $13 billion capital plan. The second thing the governor did was say, ‘the deal you made with Pataki is not my deal.' He doesn't want the second part. We say both parts have to be kept. The last piece is the city piece. I'm sure principals ran to you, ‘What is the UFT going to do about this?' The mayor never before made the schools a part of the cuts. The midyear cut: the principals have bought a pig in a poke. They are in charge. How is it that $100 million in cuts can come immediately out of schools? How could they tell them -? How are they ‘in charge'?"
She argued vehemently that there was a great "difference" between our plight with regard to the value-added testing situation on the one hand, and the budget cuts on the other. She claimed that when it came to the value added testing "we have a tremendous arsenal: by the contract, the evaluation system is closed. This is a slam dunk. The contract is closed. Unless we make a mistake . . ." To me, that seems like a big loophole in light of the recent past. Of course, Unity calls its mistakes "victories."

On the budget, she went on, "There's no legal way" to stop the cuts. That's exactly the problem. The Unity leadership has moved further and further away from even the window dressing of the tame demonstrations it once used to clothe its courtroom and lobbying strategy. It has shed even the pretense of relying on the members' activism to gain its ends. As thin as that veneer was, its abandonment actually does coincide with the deplorable and relentless string of losses we have endured as members - we are working harder, working longer, under worse conditions, with fewer protections and rights, and our real wages have barely kept pace with the skyrocketing costs of city housing, transportation, and tuition.

"The only way we can help," Weingarten continued, "is to form a coalition, be out on the streets, make a lot of noise, fight the budget cuts on behalf of the children. We have to have ten thousand members out." It isn't on our own behalf, she said, since "because of the 05, 06 contracts, they can't fire anyone. No one can say we are protecting our jobs, because our jobs are protected." But hundreds of our members have become ATRs through no fault of their own, an awful predicament. They are denied the most basic professional rights: they can be sent to any school, given any program, and their program and session can even be changed day to day. So we need to protect our members against becoming ATRs. And we should make no apologies for doing what a union should do: protect the rights of its members.

The first speaker Weingarten called from the floor was Michelle Bodden, V.P. for the Elementary Schools. She told Weingarten she was "wonderful." Then Jonathan Lessuk from the Museum School proposed an amendment to set a date for the rally for Thursday, February 14. However, he and others who supported his amendment made it very clear it was fine with them if some later date was substituted. Weingarten called on a string of members of her Unity Caucus, who all found various pretexts to oppose this resolution, simply because it came from an ordinary, school-based chapter leader. Three of these Unity Caucus speakers in a row identified themselves as "Executive Board" members, because they do not work full-time in any school, they work for the UFT, i.e., their jobs depend on Weingarten's pleasure. Naturally, they found any flimsy pretext to support Weingarten. One objection they raised to the amendment was "the proposal for a date for the rally should come from the coalition." This disingenuously ignores the fact that any action the coalition calls will most likely be initiated by its strongest, most organized member: the UFT. One supporter of the amendment, Joan Heymount, offered, "Let's take the Feb. 14 date off the books (i.e., out of the resolution), and take it to the coalition" as a proposal. But the Unity speakers against the rally, in their drive to score points with Weingarten, simply ignored this offer. Because the amendment also proposed involving older students in the rally, Unity speakers ridiculously accused the amendment's supporters of "using students as shields."
Randi Weingarten then called for a vote on the amendment, cynically noting that Feb. 14 was too soon and that "no one actually changed the date," although so many speakers in favor of the amendment had made it clear the specific date was fluid. Since a rally date for March 19 was announced less than a week after this, it's obvious the amendment was rejected mostly because of the Unity leadership's hostility to grassroots initiatives rather than a genuine opposition to the substance of the amendment. The unamended resolution carried.

The next resolution was on the value-added testing. Leo Casey, VP for the Academic High Schools made the presentation. "The DoE told us last spring they wanted to do a study of value added testing. You saw as we saw" the NY Times article, he said, without acknowledging that he was contradicting the claim in that story that the union was aware that individual teachers were being rated. "It is important to understand how intellectually dishonest what DoE is doing is," said Mr. Casey, a man whom many in the UFT opposition would say was quite an expert in intellectual dishonesty. This led to a series of speakers all deploring the inadequacy of this method of rating teachers.

But the union itself has lent legitimacy to the idea of rating teachers by test scores, by agreeing to bonuses for teachers in schools where students show progress in testing. If the union accepts the idea that a school's teachers are responsible and should be rewarded for student test progress, it makes it a lot harder to argue that they are not individually responsible. By accepting the bonus scheme, we've shot ourselves in the foot as far as making a case against evaluation by test progress.

However, we are much more seriously handicapped by a half a decade without even the tamest kind of union-wide mobilization in the streets. We are not weak because we cannot win the intellectual argument about rating teachers, We are weak because we don't have the muscle to pressure the politicians. It is clear to them that the UFT leadership won't defend members' rights, and the DoE can push us around with impunity. We languish as ATRs or in rubber rooms, we work long unpaid hours in school because we fear our bosses, our sabbaticals are rejected at the last minute, we are reduced to yearning for one thing: to reach retirement sooner. Thus the powerful attraction of 25/55, which Weingarten has dangled before us as an imminent victory for more than two years now. "It is now clear sailing," she said, regarding 25/55. Perhaps this time it is finally true.

Weingarten then told us we were going to hear "a rubber room story," from Deborah White, a teacher from Stuyvesant. The rap against her was not disclosed, but Ms. White said it "had to do with a medical disorder." She was in the rubber room for two years. "One of the worse things is the amount of time . . . " she said, "and the conditions. My case should never have been brought to 2030a (process to revoke tenure), and that is true for many people there. The D.o.E. legal department is trying to impress Joel Klein with their statistics. A lot of people end up paying fines. I had a private attorney," she said, "who filed a human rights case for me on the side. I had a good attorney, and an inexperienced, new D.o.E. attorney." She also mentioned that the D.o.E. attorney got sick at a crucial moment in her case. "They have a backlog of four hundred cases, so they really want to settle. They are using 2030a hearings to get older teachers out." Both Ms. White's fine and her U-rating were revoked. "I was lucky."

Weingarten tried to spin this as victory the union won for a member. The story even appeared later in the UFT's New York Teacher newspaper, which said, "The due process tenure system worked in her case."

However, looking at what Ms. White actually said, it reveals her to be a fortunate exception who had much more than the due process system going for her. She happened to have one of the better NYSUT attorneys. Not only that, how many rubber room people are prosecuted by a new and inexperienced D.o.E. attorney who gets sick, to boot? Finally, note that she hired her own attorney, also, who filed a suit on her behalf. Ms. White's case is the "exception that proves the rule," and the rule is that hundreds of UFT members are the victims of an unjust punitive system, and our union gives us no effective protection. The fact that a single person triumphed over the system makes us happy for Ms. White, who fully deserved her complete exoneration. But it should also make us even angrier and more indignant over the vast majority of our colleagues equally deserving of vindication, who suffer without effective recourse.
At this point, it was almost six p.m. and - after almost an hour and a half - the president's report was finally over, and the Staff Director's report was next.

By leaving at this point, I did miss the motions directed to the agenda, but I knew the "Resolution to Ensure Letters in the File Rights" would pass, since it was signed by four of the UFT Vice Presidents and the Secretary. This resolution addresses the possibility that there "has been a disproportionate increase in the number of letters in the file since 2005," when the union leadership negotiated and supported the passage of the contract that took away our right to grieve such letters when they are "unfair" or "inaccurate." If the UFT finds that there has been such an increase, the resolution says the UFT will use a provision of the 2005 contract to "sit down and negotiate the impact of that issue." I'm not sure what it means to "negotiate the impact" of an "issue." We never should have given up that right in the first place. In my school, people have gotten letters for the file for ridiculous petty reasons, or that are inaccurate, since the contract changed. Sometimes my Chapter Leader has been able to informally prevail upon the Principal to remove these letters, immediately or in a given space of time. But there seems no doubt that losing this protection has emboldened the worst supervisors and administrators to follow their inclinations. Weingarten and the entire Unity Caucus should be held accountable for making us all more vulnerable to injustice and harassment.

Dropping Richard Rothstein on Chester Finn

I attended the Manhattan Institute luncheon at the Harvard Club for Chester Finn's new book "Troublemaker." Finn, known as Checker to his friends, is one of the gurus of the corporate attack on teachers and public schools. His old friend Diane Ravitch, who the phony ed reformers think has gone over to the dark side, was there to introduce him. Before they served the chicken she stopped by to whisper, "I see there's another troublemaker here.'

I asked a 2 part question (with just a little embellishment.) Basically I dropped a Richard Rothstein on him.

1. Finn had extolled Kipp,pointing to how they were doing things with kids that the public schools were not - meaning the hard core kids that are so tough to teach.

So, I asked Finn:
Are you claiming that if every child in America attended a KIPP school every one would become middle class and go on the college? He admitted that wouldn't happen but that 70% would which many dispute. I pointed out that in my school about 30-40% of the kids were doing ok and as Rothstein pointed out these are often the kids that end up at KIPP, not the 60% who are the most difficult to teach. I didn't get a chance to drop Rothstein 2-10 on him, since the Man. Inst.never wants real debate.

For a fuller picture, check Rothstein's Response to Chester Finn which can be found at

www.epi.org/webfeatures/viewpoints/www.epirothstein_finn/rothstein-response_to_finn.pdf

2. Part 2: Given that you have a close relationship with Diane Ravitch and her criticisms of the so-called reforms instituted in NYC, where do you stand on the implementation of so many of the ideas you espouse in NYC?

Finn saying he was not based in NYC said he would defer to Diane's judgment (can we take this as a slam at BloomKlein?). But if asked about Washington DC whose Klein Klone Michelle Rhee is running the schools and whom he praised on Thursday he could make a more informed comment. If Finn is deferring to Diane on NYC, and we know that Rhee is functioning along the same lines, then, excuse my math, can we assume if a=b and b=c, then a=c?

What was clear is that Finn is setting up an excuse for Rhee's failure by talking about the special interests like the union and others. Like there are no special interests on their side?

Thanks to Diane Ravitch for making me feel comfortable in what can be an intimidating pro-corporate environment (one guy told me after he managed Milton Friedman's money for years - since the business community thinks they can run school systems better than educators I was going to ask if I could manage some of their hedge funds in return.)

I was so inspired, I wrote lyrics to the Band's The Weight in honor of Diane:

Lyrics by Norm Scott
To the tune of The Band’s "The Weight"

I pulled into Harvard Club, was feelin' about half past dread;
Just need some place where I can lay my progressive e-e-ed.
"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a red?"
He just grinned and shook my hand, and "No!", was all he said.

(Chorus:)
Take a load off Testing, take a load for free;
Take a load off Testing, And (and) (and) you can put the load right on accountabilty.

I picked up my Rothstein, I went lookin' for a place to hide;
When I saw Diane and the Devil walkin' side by side.
I said, "Hey, Diane, come on, let's go and some trouble make."
She said, "I gotta go intro this guy, but m'friend you can stick the stake."

(Chorus:)
Take a load off Testing, take a load for free;
Take a load off Testing, And (and) (and) you can put the load right on accountabilty.

Go down, Chris Cerf, there's nothin' you can say
It's just ol' Joel Klein, and Joel’s waitin' on the Judgement Day.
"Well, Joel, my friend, what about the young uns been screwed?"
He said, "Do me a favor, son, woncha keep schools in the hands of the few?"

(Chorus)

Crazy Chester went on and on, and he made me see through the fog.
He said, "If you accept KIPP, you’ll be allowed to eat your hot dog."
I said, "Wait a minute, Chester, you know KIPP can’t educate em all."
He said, "That's okay, boy, we’ll take 70% and public ed will take a fall"

(Chorus)

Catch a new governance now, t'take me down the line
Public ed is sinkin' low and I do believe it's time.
To get back to democracy, you know it’s the only one.
For teachers, parents, students and regards for everyone.

(Chorus:)
Take a load off Testing, take a load for free;
Take a load off Testing, And (and) (and) you can put the load right on accountabilty.