Remember that Randi Weingarten called the Detroit teachers contract, branded as the worst in AFT history by many, a good one.
Maybe just a drop in the bucket of the UFT dominated AFT, but this message from Detroit's Steve Conn is an early warning sign for Randi Weingarten and the AFT that their collaborationist policies are causing a counter reaction. Now let's understand this: In the current UFT elections, Unity will win 750-800 delegates to the AFT convention in Seattle, July 2-4 this summer. Check your ballot to see if your chapter leader is on the list and you will get an idea of why you are seeing Mulgrew literature flooding your mailboxes. This is not something Unity people like to talk about in their schools. That you are paying for their little junket. But Steve Conn and a merry band of delegates will be there to greet them. Steve and I have spoken and he wants the dissident NYC crew to join them to make a statement. If we go it will be just like the DA - maybe we can bring back video of all your favorite Unity Caucus members eating, drinking and partying ala the famous wine and cheese party used to try and scuttle the ATR rally a year and a half ago.
For those who think Mulgrew is not Randi, watch his votes in Seattle this summer. I guarantee 100% agreement with Randi. As will all the other 800 Unity Caucus revelers.
Press Release!!
Public Education’ Defenders Win Detroit Teachers Union Election
A group of Detroit teachers who vigorously campaigned against the recent contract that their union negotiated with DPS Financial Manager Rob Bobb have swept all 20 positions in union elections held this week for delegates to their union’s national convention scheduled for this summer in Seattle.
“With this vote, teachers in the schools have spoken loudly and clearly that they want a sharp change in union policy at the national level and an aggressive defense of public education against the charter schools and privatization plans of US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan,” said Cass Tech teacher and long-time activist Steve Conn, whose 1507 votes placed him first in a field of 63 candidates.
The teachers group, known as Defend Public Education / Save Our Students, last week got the Detroit Federation of Teachers to begin mobilizing for the April 10th National March to Defend Public Education, in Washington DC. Buses will leave from the DFT headquarters on West Grand Blvd. Friday night, April 9th.
“As the rising new leaders of the DFT, we will take our message from the Department of Education building in DC to the convention center in Seattle – the future of American society depends on strengthening, not dismantling, efforts to provide every young person with an equal, quality, integrated public education experience,” said Conn. “We plan to get the Seattle convention to build a Million Teacher March on Washington this fall. “
The Defend Public Education group also plans to help lead DPS union in a march this Tuesday from the DFT Building to Rob Bobb’s headquarters at the Detroit New Center‘s Fisher Building in order to stop Bobb’s plans for massive school closings, layoffs, and union concessions. From the Fisher Building, they will march down Woodward Ave. to join cityworkers protesting Dave Bing’s Sate of the City Address at Orchestra Hall.
The group opposes a mayoral takeover of DPS,pointing out how much damage was done to the city’s schools by the 1999-2004 state / mayoral takeover.
contact 313.645.9340
sjconn@msn.com
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Don’t Forget to Vote by Arthur Goldstein
Guest columnist
It’s UFT election time again, and we’re all pretty busy.
In schools, that means a whole lot of flyers telling us who to vote for. Basically there are three slates—Unity, New Action, and ICE-TJC, a coalition of the Independent Coalition of Educators and Teachers for a Just Contract. And election time is now, so I’ve read all of them. They’re not much different from the things you get in the mail when your friendly local politicians want jobs.
Who are these folks? No one denies Unity is the big dog in this race. Every UFT President has been a member of Unity, and the invitation-only Unity Caucus has dominated the UFT, well, forever. New chapter leaders are offered free trips to conventions and recruited. They then sign an application, which specifically states that members will “express criticism of caucus policies within the Caucus” and “support the decisions of Caucus / Union leadership in public or Union forums.” Critics call it a loyalty oath.
In his book The Teacher Rebellion, former AFT President David Selden writes, “Its decisions must be followed by the members in every detail. Several members have been expelled because the opposed the Vietnam War or were not supportive enough of the union’s opposition to community control.” Albert Shanker, the UFT’s first President, was one Tough Liberal indeed.
There are tangible benefits to joining Unity. On the lowest rung of the ladder, you could go to conventions. When I became a UFT delegate a few years back, a teacher told me, “You know, I’d like to become a delegate.”
“Really?” I asked. “I’m surprised. I didn’t think you were interested in union politics.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I just want to go to the conventions.”
That wasn’t the best way to earn my support, but at the time, he may have known union politics better than I did—he’s got Unity buddies.
The oldest opposition party is called New Action. When I started teaching I voted for them. Their pamphlets made it clear they were outsiders, and that appealed to me. Unity put out particularly nasty flyers, calling them “No Action,” which I found juvenile. From what I heard around the lunchroom, they had no chance of winning anyway, so I figured what the hell, and voted for them. They did have a few seats on the UFT’s policy-making Executive Board, mostly representing high schools, and for a while even junior high schools.
Soon after I started teaching (in 1984), they surprised everyone and took the High School Academic Vice Presidency. After Mike Shulman won, Unity forced a revote in which Shulman won by an even larger margin. After Shulman failed to be re-elected in the next election, they forced a rule change. High school teachers no longer select the High School Academic Vice-President. Now, not only all teachers, but also home day care workers, the administrative law judges and other non teachers, including retirees living it up in Boca Raton, vote for all vice-presidents. It’s kind of like having Oklahoma and Texas help New York choose representatives—the results became much more predictable.
In 2003, New Action made a deal with Unity. They would no longer oppose the Unity presidential candidate, and Unity would no longer oppose them for the six high school seats on the UFT Executive Board, seats New Action had won by narrow margins time and again. They couldn't resist this sure bet. Also, New Action leaders, for the first time, were given union jobs.
Some members of New Action, disenchanted with this move, left to join a group of non-affiliated activists to form the Independent Community of Educators, or ICE. In 2004, they teamed up with another caucus, Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC). They defeated New Action and took high school seats that Unity had not opposed. This resulted in the unspeakable—unapproved minority representation in the UFT Executive Board. Though this represented only 6 seats of 89, even that was unacceptable. The Unity Caucus didn’t want to be pestered by Executive Board members James Eterno and Jeff Kaufman—as they vigorously opposed things like the 2005 contract, merit pay, and mayoral control. It’s so much easier to run an organization without meddlesome dissenters—ask Mayor Bloomberg.
To make sure this wouldn’t happen again, Unity cross-endorsed New Action candidates in the 2007 election. Though ICE/ TJC outpolled New Action 3 to 1 in high schools, New Action won several Executive Board seats representing high schools while ICE/TJC got none. Clearly, the Unity cross-endorsement had paid off.
ICE/TJC is running a slate including presidential candidate James Eterno, Jamaica’s UFT chapter leader, and former UFT executive board member. (Full disclosure—I’m running for the UFT’s Executive Board representing high schools.) ICE/ TJC now seems to receive the all the love that used to be reserved for New Action, largely characterized as perpetual naysayers. It’s true we oppose the appeasement of anti-teacher, anti-union demagogues like Mayor Bloomberg and Joel Klein—but that’s because it’s been repeatedly proven not to help us.
Still ICE/ TJC supports a lot of things—a fair contract, placement for teachers whose schools close, democracy in NYC as well as the UFT, and a driven chapter leader named James Eterno for UFT President. We support transparency. We support teachers, guidance counselors, secretaries, and paraprofessionals. We support working people and the future of the teaching profession.
We support union, a strong union that stands up and fights those who baselessly attack us in the media. We support fighting fire with fire, speaking truth to power, and using the power of the UFT for something more productive than creating cute little cartoons that air during the Today show.
We are writers, thinkers, and doers. We are real live activists, who don’t need to organize an advisory committee or ask permission before demonstrating in front of Mayor Bloomberg’s house. When there’s a fire, we’re not on our Blackberries emailing Randi Weingarten for directions before we evacuate. We act in the interests of working teachers, and we don’t fret over whether or not it will get us invited to the next convention or gala luncheon. We are proactive, not reactive.
We don’t believe in buying dear and selling cheap. We don’t believe in giving up everything but the kitchen sink for an extra point. We don’t believe in selling out new teachers by promising three percent of their salaries to Mayor Bloomberg for an extra 17 years. We don’t believe in dumping every gain we made over twenty years for a few points above the pattern. Nor do we believe in negotiating a ten percent compensation increase for ten percent more work and calling it a raise.
We hope teachers vote, and we hope they think carefully before doing so. The machine is getting a little creaky.
It’s time for new blood.
It’s UFT election time again, and we’re all pretty busy.
In schools, that means a whole lot of flyers telling us who to vote for. Basically there are three slates—Unity, New Action, and ICE-TJC, a coalition of the Independent Coalition of Educators and Teachers for a Just Contract. And election time is now, so I’ve read all of them. They’re not much different from the things you get in the mail when your friendly local politicians want jobs.
Who are these folks? No one denies Unity is the big dog in this race. Every UFT President has been a member of Unity, and the invitation-only Unity Caucus has dominated the UFT, well, forever. New chapter leaders are offered free trips to conventions and recruited. They then sign an application, which specifically states that members will “express criticism of caucus policies within the Caucus” and “support the decisions of Caucus / Union leadership in public or Union forums.” Critics call it a loyalty oath.
In his book The Teacher Rebellion, former AFT President David Selden writes, “Its decisions must be followed by the members in every detail. Several members have been expelled because the opposed the Vietnam War or were not supportive enough of the union’s opposition to community control.” Albert Shanker, the UFT’s first President, was one Tough Liberal indeed.
There are tangible benefits to joining Unity. On the lowest rung of the ladder, you could go to conventions. When I became a UFT delegate a few years back, a teacher told me, “You know, I’d like to become a delegate.”
“Really?” I asked. “I’m surprised. I didn’t think you were interested in union politics.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I just want to go to the conventions.”
That wasn’t the best way to earn my support, but at the time, he may have known union politics better than I did—he’s got Unity buddies.
The oldest opposition party is called New Action. When I started teaching I voted for them. Their pamphlets made it clear they were outsiders, and that appealed to me. Unity put out particularly nasty flyers, calling them “No Action,” which I found juvenile. From what I heard around the lunchroom, they had no chance of winning anyway, so I figured what the hell, and voted for them. They did have a few seats on the UFT’s policy-making Executive Board, mostly representing high schools, and for a while even junior high schools.
Soon after I started teaching (in 1984), they surprised everyone and took the High School Academic Vice Presidency. After Mike Shulman won, Unity forced a revote in which Shulman won by an even larger margin. After Shulman failed to be re-elected in the next election, they forced a rule change. High school teachers no longer select the High School Academic Vice-President. Now, not only all teachers, but also home day care workers, the administrative law judges and other non teachers, including retirees living it up in Boca Raton, vote for all vice-presidents. It’s kind of like having Oklahoma and Texas help New York choose representatives—the results became much more predictable.
In 2003, New Action made a deal with Unity. They would no longer oppose the Unity presidential candidate, and Unity would no longer oppose them for the six high school seats on the UFT Executive Board, seats New Action had won by narrow margins time and again. They couldn't resist this sure bet. Also, New Action leaders, for the first time, were given union jobs.
Some members of New Action, disenchanted with this move, left to join a group of non-affiliated activists to form the Independent Community of Educators, or ICE. In 2004, they teamed up with another caucus, Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC). They defeated New Action and took high school seats that Unity had not opposed. This resulted in the unspeakable—unapproved minority representation in the UFT Executive Board. Though this represented only 6 seats of 89, even that was unacceptable. The Unity Caucus didn’t want to be pestered by Executive Board members James Eterno and Jeff Kaufman—as they vigorously opposed things like the 2005 contract, merit pay, and mayoral control. It’s so much easier to run an organization without meddlesome dissenters—ask Mayor Bloomberg.
To make sure this wouldn’t happen again, Unity cross-endorsed New Action candidates in the 2007 election. Though ICE/ TJC outpolled New Action 3 to 1 in high schools, New Action won several Executive Board seats representing high schools while ICE/TJC got none. Clearly, the Unity cross-endorsement had paid off.
ICE/TJC is running a slate including presidential candidate James Eterno, Jamaica’s UFT chapter leader, and former UFT executive board member. (Full disclosure—I’m running for the UFT’s Executive Board representing high schools.) ICE/ TJC now seems to receive the all the love that used to be reserved for New Action, largely characterized as perpetual naysayers. It’s true we oppose the appeasement of anti-teacher, anti-union demagogues like Mayor Bloomberg and Joel Klein—but that’s because it’s been repeatedly proven not to help us.
Still ICE/ TJC supports a lot of things—a fair contract, placement for teachers whose schools close, democracy in NYC as well as the UFT, and a driven chapter leader named James Eterno for UFT President. We support transparency. We support teachers, guidance counselors, secretaries, and paraprofessionals. We support working people and the future of the teaching profession.
We support union, a strong union that stands up and fights those who baselessly attack us in the media. We support fighting fire with fire, speaking truth to power, and using the power of the UFT for something more productive than creating cute little cartoons that air during the Today show.
We are writers, thinkers, and doers. We are real live activists, who don’t need to organize an advisory committee or ask permission before demonstrating in front of Mayor Bloomberg’s house. When there’s a fire, we’re not on our Blackberries emailing Randi Weingarten for directions before we evacuate. We act in the interests of working teachers, and we don’t fret over whether or not it will get us invited to the next convention or gala luncheon. We are proactive, not reactive.
We don’t believe in buying dear and selling cheap. We don’t believe in giving up everything but the kitchen sink for an extra point. We don’t believe in selling out new teachers by promising three percent of their salaries to Mayor Bloomberg for an extra 17 years. We don’t believe in dumping every gain we made over twenty years for a few points above the pattern. Nor do we believe in negotiating a ten percent compensation increase for ten percent more work and calling it a raise.
We hope teachers vote, and we hope they think carefully before doing so. The machine is getting a little creaky.
It’s time for new blood.
Are Charter School Operators Klingons?
Norm Scott in The Wave, March 19, 2010
I mean the evil 1960's version of Klingons, not the benign 80's version. But then again you can spell it with a "C" but I won't go there (but if you have the stomach, check your wicki). If you go to any charter school hearing, the operators who show up pushing their pet schools into public school space seem to be reading from a script. They don't intend to infringe. It will be a wonderful for the two schools to work together. They know you have a wonderful school but shouldn't people have choice? Isn't it an American right? I mean, you get choice of corn flakes in the supermarket. The DOE told them how much space there is in the school - even if special ed has to be taught in a closet. They don't want to steal your best kids, despite the glossy brochures the top scoring kids' families are receiving over and over again. And best of all, they don't want to take your building – this is just temporary – ground is already being broken for their own building – in western China.
I mean the evil 1960's version of Klingons, not the benign 80's version. But then again you can spell it with a "C" but I won't go there (but if you have the stomach, check your wicki). If you go to any charter school hearing, the operators who show up pushing their pet schools into public school space seem to be reading from a script. They don't intend to infringe. It will be a wonderful for the two schools to work together. They know you have a wonderful school but shouldn't people have choice? Isn't it an American right? I mean, you get choice of corn flakes in the supermarket. The DOE told them how much space there is in the school - even if special ed has to be taught in a closet. They don't want to steal your best kids, despite the glossy brochures the top scoring kids' families are receiving over and over again. And best of all, they don't want to take your building – this is just temporary – ground is already being broken for their own building – in western China.
What they don't say is that they intend to grow at least to 8th grade, maybe 12th grade (and possibly cradle to grave) and can be assured of getting the building eventually because all requests by the public school to grow will be denied by the DOE. They may even take away a grade or two from the public school to make sure the often politically connected charter will have lebensraum.
And then there will be those charter school ads. Did you see the Harlem Children's Zone ad on the Academy Awards telecast? THE ACADEMY AWARDS. And Eva Moskowitz' Harlem Success is bombarding kids with brochures and even is advertising on TV. Don't you wonder why all these schools with supposedly massive waiting lists of people dying to leave the public schools have to spend so much money advertising?
I missed the hearing at the Goldie Maple Academy where Challenge Preparatory Charter was making its case because I was taping a parallel hearing at PS 92 in Crown Heights, where the Lefferts Garden charter promised to take their kids to nearby Brooklyn Botanic Garden every day and fly them to the moon once a week. So I am relying on Miriam Rosenberg's excellent report in last week's Wave. As she quoted one charter school leader after another, I felt I was there because I had heard it all so often.
Well, maybe not the building part. It seems they were offered their own but turned it down. Here is a link to its application, which was approved by the Regents (which includes our own Geraldine Chapey:
The lead applicant, Rev. Dr. Leslie Mullings, is the executive director of the Rockaway Center for Community Development. Reverend Mullings is also employed as a substance abuse counselor and youth development specialist by the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE). He is the Senior Pastor of the Far Rockaway Community Church of the Nazarene.
The School has also received letters of support from the following community leaders and organizations: Michelle Titus, State Assembly Member representing the 31st Assembly District (Queens), James Sanders, City Council Member representing the 31st Council District (Queens); Helen Marshall, Borough President (Queens); Malcolm Smith, State Senator; Jonathan Gaska, District Manager Community Board #14; Kevin Alexander, Executive Director, Rockaway Development & Revitalization Corporation; and from Congressman Gregory Meeks, House of Representatives – 6th Congressional District.
Shame on each and every one of them. With Helen Marshall supporting the charter what can we expect from our Queens Rep Dmytro Fedkowskyj when he votes at the PEP on March 23 in Staten Island where the issue has already been pre-decided by Bloomberg's majority appointees?
UFT Election Ballots Due by April 6
I've been pretty busy with the UFT election process, currently going school to school stuffing fliers in teacher mail boxes for the ICE-TJC slate I an running with. I will probably stop by a bunch of Rockaway schools by next week, so look for me (and inform your security guards and principals we have the right to do this because it is an election period). We have the right to stuff boxes because the Unity caucus which has run this union for 50 years gets all the chapter leaders to put literature in the boxes - time and again. Exactly how many Mulgrew ads have you gotten? It's nice to have big bucks. ICE-TJC feels like Bill Thompson or Tony Avella vs. Bloomberg. The principal of one Rockaway school denied me when I tried to put leaflets in his school because he didn't know an election was going on. He didn't notice all those Unity ads flooding the mail boxes, I guess. I notified the UFT and he got a call from the DOE telling him the score. Next, I'm having Timothy Geithner call to tell him there was a financial crisis last year.
Schwach on Ravitch
I loved Howie's [Schwach, Wave editor] piece - Diane Ravitch – My Education Hero - last week, but have a few points of contention. But I'm off to stuff mailboxes, so I'll leave it for another time.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Elfrank-Dana Letter to Bergtraum Staff
It’s that time again- the UFT elections. You should get your ballot in the mail.
Only about one quarter of us will vote if trends continue. It’s a problem I brought up to the union leadership (including Mulgrew); this lack of participation. They were at a loss as to why or what could be done about it.
It’s one of the reasons why I joined the ICE/TJC opposition. We need strong democratic unionism to move us forward. The Unity Caucus (Randi Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew’s political machine) may have gotten us more money from contracts, but have given so much away in terms of rights that sticking around long enough to enjoy the benefits seems impossible.
The days of accommodation, we want to be on your team, approach must end. We can’t rely on the strategy of the benevolent mayor (dictator) to save us; which has been Unity’s approach. We need to stand on the fundamentals of democratic unionism. We must organize for confrontation. However, we must be smart, patient and brave about it.
I think the ICE/TJC slate, with James Eterno for President, is our best hope. I know James personally. He’s been a valuable source of information for me. He’s an experienced chapter leader and man with principles. He gets it.
You can see James and what the ICE/TJC ticket stands for at: http://uftelections2010.blogspot.com/2010/02/james-eterno-ice-tjcs-candidate-for.html
Please feel free to pass this message along to any other UFT members you know.
In solidarity,
John
John Elfrank-Dana
UFT Chapter Leader
Murry Bergtraum High School
www.Elfrank.com/UFT
The Dreaded "D" and the UFT
Yes. D for Discontinuance. Once you get it on your record you cannot be hired. Any principal it seems can doom you for life. If someone offers you a job and asks for your records, the DOE will not release them. Why? Because they require a letter that you have a job offer which no one will give you without seeing your records. Yossarian would be left scratching his head at this one.
Now on to the UFT. If you find you are blacklisted by the dreaded D and ask the UFT for help you will get 12 different answers. The most common is: Don't worry, that is only for your district. You can be hired by another district. NOT.
How shameful that the Unity Caucus/UFT just lets people hang out to dry like this. In purgatory forever. A fighting union would make a big deal out of this. But the people with D's are the nontenured and the few, so why bother?
One word of advice people get is to resign before they get the dreaded D and get re-certified in another license. Some choice.
Distribution update:
ICE-TJC leaflets are going like hot cakes. People have been making copies and putting them out in their schools without even letting us know. It would help to know so we don't duplicate but if people get the stuff twice we are still behind the Mulgrew murder of entire forests. The latest is a letter from your Unity chapter leader and the district rep telling you to vote
for Unity.I finally got into Fort Hamilton yesterday where the Unity CL had told the school aide at the desk not to let me in. The principal invited me into her office and we had a lovely chat.
I spoke to two lunch hours at an elementary school with a Unity CL, who was not the one to invite me. A few younger teachers and we had a good chat about numerous issues beyond the election. Very invigorating - for me at least.
Some Unity hacks are telling teachers who want to invite me it is not allowed. Pretty funny when the entire Unity machine waltzes into schools at will. "No electioneering" they tell ICE supporters, another Catch-22 for Yossarian.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Paperwork Monster
People are not against paperwork that helps the kids. But when it seems useless and ties you up so you do less teaching the frustration level rises.
Repeated questions to the UFT have gone on deaf ears.
"Oh, everybody has to do it in the district," is one standard response.
Teachers should have their own secretaries.
Repeated questions to the UFT have gone on deaf ears.
"Oh, everybody has to do it in the district," is one standard response.
Teachers should have their own secretaries.
Here is what teachers at one elementary school have to do.
Conference log notes: Reading and Writing
Strategy Lesson Template
Guided Reading Template
Math Portfolio 5 specific samples
Writing Portfolio 3 specific samples
On Demand writing levels 4 times per year
Running Records 4 times per year
Interim Goals
EClas 2 times per year (Records marked in 3 places: Bubble grids, Notations on each page and front of booklet, large grid)
Individual Math assessment 4 times per year (Notated on both group sheet and individual sheet)
New webpage to include welcome, weekly homework, class activities, blog
holdover conferences
holdover letters
At Risk forms
After school planning template
Check parents phone numbers with parents during p-t conferences
Distribute ARIS pin numbers to parents during p-t conferences
Obtain parents cell phone and telephone number for k-12 alert during p-t conferences
Strategy Lesson Template
Guided Reading Template
Math Portfolio 5 specific samples
Writing Portfolio 3 specific samples
On Demand writing levels 4 times per year
Running Records 4 times per year
Interim Goals
EClas 2 times per year (Records marked in 3 places: Bubble grids, Notations on each page and front of booklet, large grid)
Individual Math assessment 4 times per year (Notated on both group sheet and individual sheet)
New webpage to include welcome, weekly homework, class activities, blog
holdover conferences
holdover letters
At Risk forms
After school planning template
Check parents phone numbers with parents during p-t conferences
Distribute ARIS pin numbers to parents during p-t conferences
Obtain parents cell phone and telephone number for k-12 alert during p-t conferences
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Fort Hamilton HS - Unity Caucus Chapter Leader Tells Security to Keep Us Out
After yesterday's experience at Grady Voc, Mulgrew's old school, which I reported this morning on how the UFT Unity CL has told the security guard to keep us out, I had a 2nd day of being turned away from Fort Hamilton HS today. Yesterday I could live with because I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I called the chapter leader and left a message. And also called Michael Mendel from the UFT who is always very good about getting things straightened out. He called me in the evenign to say I could go back. So today I did. And got the same runaround. Both days were not with the regular security. This time she spilled the beans when she said she was told not to let me in. "Who told you," I asked? "Mr. Fried, the UFT chapter leader," she answered. BINGO! Another call into Mendel. Actually, about 4 calls. He had the DOE call the school but everyone had abandoned ship by then. So I will go back tomorrow.
We are tracking these refusals so if we are close on the high school vote we have grounds to protest. Keep it up boys. This can turn out to be fun.
Then there was this comment from a teacher on the previous post:
Fortunately, the UFT's actions or non actions make it easy to convince the members of a school being threatened by the take over by a charter school - Girl's Prep. Today Mike Mulgrew and Leo Casey came to visit Girl's Prep at about 10 am None of the staff at PS 188 knew they were coming. They left and never even attempted to meet with the staff even though it was a 1/2 day and we could have easily gotten everyone together. The number of staff checking the ICE/TJC box tripled today as a result. Thanks guys.
We are tracking these refusals so if we are close on the high school vote we have grounds to protest. Keep it up boys. This can turn out to be fun.
Then there was this comment from a teacher on the previous post:
Fortunately, the UFT's actions or non actions make it easy to convince the members of a school being threatened by the take over by a charter school - Girl's Prep. Today Mike Mulgrew and Leo Casey came to visit Girl's Prep at about 10 am None of the staff at PS 188 knew they were coming. They left and never even attempted to meet with the staff even though it was a 1/2 day and we could have easily gotten everyone together. The number of staff checking the ICE/TJC box tripled today as a result. Thanks guys.
The Distributive Law
I spent part of yesterday going around schools putting ICE-TJC election lit in mailboxes. I wish I could tell all the stories but I don't want to give away too much to the Unity/New Action slugs/thugs that troll this blog.
But one story is worth sharing:
I went to Grady - Mulgrew's old school - where I expected some problems. Sure enough the security guard wouldn't let me in until she got the CL - said he went ballistic the last time someone came in. I challenged that he had to be called- I said he was the Republicans and I was the Democrats and he had no right to interfere - and some other guards backed me up. One of them escorted me to the mailboxes and the slug/ thug passed us - "that's him" she said. I called to him and said we were monitoring the boxes and if the election were close we would challenge on the basis of no equal access if the leaflets were pulled.
"You have no right to come in my building" he said. Sure. I went in and stuffed the boxes, expecting them to be pulled
After I stuffed the boxes I decided to call Michael Mendel from the UFT who is the contact person and does a good job making sure our rights are enforced to tell him that the CL had no right to tell the security guards not to let people in. Just then the Unity slug/thug walked into the mailbox room and took out a leaflet and tore it up - then another. I told Mendel he was doing it as we spoke and the slug said he was just tearing up the ones on his box. I told Mendel we would monitor the Grady boxes and protest the election if close in the high schools. I also told him this guy was not exactly the best face even Unity would want for the union. If I have to go back there every day I will.
On the way out I got smiles and thumbs up from some of the security guards. Unity slug/thug is not well loved it seems.
Once the UFT election ballots went out on Friday, ICE went into full distribution mode for a the next two weeks. Our partners, TJC, have been out there for a few weeks but our strategy was to wait for people to begin receiving their ballots before hitting the schools.
There has been some criticism directed our way for not going out much sooner to stuff mail boxes, which have been flooded with Unity and New Action material.
I have never been convinced that the mailbox stuffing has much of an impact. Unity doesn't have to send out hordes to stuff. All they do is send it to chapter leaders and they get 95% penetration. And where they know an ICE person is present they send in the district reps to stuff. New Action has a horde of 20 retirees out there stuffing. ICE has 3.
So with many of the ICE core being involved with GEM and fighting the charter and school closing battles, we decided to husband our resources.
Look at Unity in the last election. They stuffed and stuffed, as they are doing now.
Unity received 6200 votes out of a potential 40,000 elementary votes, 1500 votes out of potential 13,o00 votes in middle schools and less than 2200 out of 20,000 in high schools. That's pretty slim.
New Action also stuffed last time and their totals were: HS 521, MS 273 and ES 562.
ICE-TJC totals were: HS 1550, MS 444, ES 1337
You can see the comparison of the 2004 and 2007 elections here.
Considering Unity is Bloomberg and we're Tony Avella, the totals were pretty weak for Unity compared to us. They might do better now that the increasingly despised Randi is gone - even though Mulgrew was her personal choice. The behind the scenes Unity campaign is: He's NOT Randi.
So the idea of spending 6 weeks racing around schools for weeks before teachers who mostly couldn't care less about the elections or even have any knowledge about it didn't make sense. But the 2 weeks after they get their ballots did make sense. Remember that 77% of the teachers in the schools did not vote last time. So if they see a flier now it might connect a bit. Hopefully, they connect by checking the ICE-TJC box.
Monday, March 15, 2010
UFT Elections: The Young Uns are Coming - Teachers Unite/NYCORE Endosrse ICE-TJC
Maybe they're not coming quick enough to affect this election. But they are coming. The Teachers Unite/NYCORE candidates forum drew a nice crowd over a week ago. Check out the final 10 minutes in this video I posted:
On Thursday night they held a "Get out the vote" event which drew some teachers. Just drops in the bucket so far, but the first signs of movement on that end in a long time. Maybe I can really retire soon.
I received a request from one of the participants, a first year teacher, to send her ICE-TJC lit for her school. I have two invitations to speak at schools this week from two other participants, teachers in the system for 5 years or less.
As I said, this awakening may be too little too late - for this election. But as one participant said: This is a great training ground for me for the future. I knew almost nothing about the UFT before this. Our role is to provide whatever assistance the new generation of union activists need.
So many people have told us they just forgot to vote. It is not enough to put leaflet in mail boxes. Unity CL's are actually offering raffle tickets to anyone who brings them their ballot.
Here is a GOTV questionnaire TU/NYCORE made up to get people to vote.
ICE, TJC, Unity, New Action at TU/NYCORE Candidate Forum
Both groups then endorsed the ICE-TJC slate in the election.On Thursday night they held a "Get out the vote" event which drew some teachers. Just drops in the bucket so far, but the first signs of movement on that end in a long time. Maybe I can really retire soon.
I received a request from one of the participants, a first year teacher, to send her ICE-TJC lit for her school. I have two invitations to speak at schools this week from two other participants, teachers in the system for 5 years or less.
As I said, this awakening may be too little too late - for this election. But as one participant said: This is a great training ground for me for the future. I knew almost nothing about the UFT before this. Our role is to provide whatever assistance the new generation of union activists need.
So many people have told us they just forgot to vote. It is not enough to put leaflet in mail boxes. Unity CL's are actually offering raffle tickets to anyone who brings them their ballot.
Here is a GOTV questionnaire TU/NYCORE made up to get people to vote.
1) Did you receive the ballot for the UFT election in the mail? Ballots are mailed March 12
2) Do you know who you’re going to vote for?
3) What are two things that would improve your working conditions?
4) What other issues are important to you?
5) What do you know about the different caucuses and slates?
Organizing union
We want to help build an organizing union that mobilizes all of us to fight against pay-for-performance policies and budget cuts, while fighting for a contract that guarantees us a cost of living wage increase and no give-backs.
Teachers have a voice
We need to show our union leadership that we teachers have a voice that must be heard.
Teachers Unite and NYCoRE endorses ICE-TJC
Teachers Unite and NYCoRE have endorsed the ICE-TJC slate because they have actively fought for a democratic, transparent union that mobilizes its members, makes their voices heard, and leads UFT decisions.
Unity
Unity has led our union since the 1960s and we feel their bureaucratic style is undemocratic and conciliatory. Unity is the current leadership of this union that comes up short in the fight against the injustices facing our schools and communities. In addition, Unity has agreed to givebacks on teacher time as well as coming out in support of merit pay for test scores and charter schools.
6) Can I count on you to vote for ICE-TJC?
7) [If “no” or “not sure” to the question above] Can I count on you to vote at all?
8) [For the very enthusiastic]: Do you know five other colleagues you can talk to about the UFT election? Who?
9) Did you know that over 2,000 ballots were invalidated in the last UFT election because people made a check mark by both the individual candidates AND a slate?
Ballot
[Show your ballot and how to vote for the ICE-TJC slate]
10) Would you bring your ballot in on [specific day/date: ] so we can vote together and show our co-workers the importance of our vote?
11) I’m going to check back with you on [specific day/date ] to follow up.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Ravitch on Goldstein and More on UFT Elections
"Arthur, Thank you for a brilliant review of my book! It means a lot to me that a teacher in the trenches likes it and thought I hit a bulls eye." -Diane Ravitch
The comment from Diane Ravitch posted last Sunday at Gotham Schools in a thread following Arthur Goldstein's review of her new book is worth highlighting for the multiple bases it touches.
Now I must point out once again that Arthur is running with ICE-TJC for High School Executive Board in the current UFT elections. These 6 positions look to be winnable since ICE-TJC took 36% of the vote against the Unity/New Action combo in 2007. If we win those seats it would put Lawhead, Fiorillo, Kit Wainer, Marian Swerdlow and Peter Lamphere in addition to Arthur on the board. Compare any Unity/New Action people you can think of to these 6 and you come up empty.
Only high school teachers will see their names on the ballot, so it is especially imperative to get out the vote in the high schools. Since only around 4,000 out of 20,000 high school teachers voted in the last election, it will take constant reminders to get people to return their ballots with the ICE-TJC box checked off. If you want these voices on the UFT Exec Bd start reminding people Monday and do so for the next two weeks.
The rough numbers in 2007 were Unity: 2250, New Action: 550, ICE-TJC: 1550. (New Action ended up with 3 HS EB seats with a thousand less votes than ICE-TJC.) Thus if ICE-TJC and double the vote they would win handily. So go get em.
In this comment, Diane covers a lot of ground that touch on UFT policies.
Unions in charters
"You have read my book so you know my overall conclusion is that they range from excellent to awful but on average, they do not produce better results than regular public schools. Second, the charter movement is dominated by anti-union ideologues; charter schools succeed by hiring young, single teachers and having them work 50-60 or more hours a week. Of the 5,000 or so charter schools in the nation currently, I would guess that 95% of them are non-union. That is no accident."
This blows up the AFT/UFT strategy of organizing charters as a "solution". Where have they been up to now? They will continue to blow up every little victory while 95 charters open for every 5 they organize. The charters have incredible turnover and teachers often jump from charter to charter, so organizing is a moving target.
Even if they do organize charters - let's say every one in NYC, you end up with individual contracts for each school and the power of the UFT as an organization capable of shutting down a school system is dissipated. But the top level of the UFT would continue to flourish as dues keeps flowing in. They know this and will try to keep the lid on the cap not to protect public schools but to keep the dues rolling in.
On Green Dot charters, which the UFT has made a big deal of
"Green Dot took over Locke High School in Los Angeles to much fanfare. They cleaned up the school, established order, provided good maintenance. But after a year of publicity about the Locke miracle, the scores came out and they had not changed by even 1 percent. Of course, scores are not all that matter, and they are not always a good indicator of school quality. But the fanfare got a little quieter when it became a matter of record that the students had not turned overnight into college-ready scholars simply because private managers took over."
Leo Casey claimed at last week's forum that the UFT/Green Dot contract was better than ours.
Unity/UFT less than subtle attempts to stifle discussion
"I am shocked that anyone would suggest you might be disciplined by the NYC Department of Education for your free expression of opinion, including criticism of your bosses."
This was a response to UFT/Unity Caucus ideologue Peter Goodman's comments, with lots of others jumping in. I suggest you read through the thread to get the full gist.
Here is Goldstein's message to the staff of Francis Lewis HS:
Robotics
Well, it's off for a weekend of robotics at the Javits center, where Klein is supposed to make an appearance at 9AM this morning. I'll be doing my hair, but will get there later. I will be there all day Sunday handling registration for the 80 NYC teams taking part in the FIRST LEGO League tournament. Come on down. And you can also check out the over 60 high school teams from around the nation doing the big robots - they are there today too.
The comment from Diane Ravitch posted last Sunday at Gotham Schools in a thread following Arthur Goldstein's review of her new book is worth highlighting for the multiple bases it touches.
Now I must point out once again that Arthur is running with ICE-TJC for High School Executive Board in the current UFT elections. These 6 positions look to be winnable since ICE-TJC took 36% of the vote against the Unity/New Action combo in 2007. If we win those seats it would put Lawhead, Fiorillo, Kit Wainer, Marian Swerdlow and Peter Lamphere in addition to Arthur on the board. Compare any Unity/New Action people you can think of to these 6 and you come up empty.
Only high school teachers will see their names on the ballot, so it is especially imperative to get out the vote in the high schools. Since only around 4,000 out of 20,000 high school teachers voted in the last election, it will take constant reminders to get people to return their ballots with the ICE-TJC box checked off. If you want these voices on the UFT Exec Bd start reminding people Monday and do so for the next two weeks.
The rough numbers in 2007 were Unity: 2250, New Action: 550, ICE-TJC: 1550. (New Action ended up with 3 HS EB seats with a thousand less votes than ICE-TJC.) Thus if ICE-TJC and double the vote they would win handily. So go get em.
In this comment, Diane covers a lot of ground that touch on UFT policies.
Unions in charters
"You have read my book so you know my overall conclusion is that they range from excellent to awful but on average, they do not produce better results than regular public schools. Second, the charter movement is dominated by anti-union ideologues; charter schools succeed by hiring young, single teachers and having them work 50-60 or more hours a week. Of the 5,000 or so charter schools in the nation currently, I would guess that 95% of them are non-union. That is no accident."
This blows up the AFT/UFT strategy of organizing charters as a "solution". Where have they been up to now? They will continue to blow up every little victory while 95 charters open for every 5 they organize. The charters have incredible turnover and teachers often jump from charter to charter, so organizing is a moving target.
Even if they do organize charters - let's say every one in NYC, you end up with individual contracts for each school and the power of the UFT as an organization capable of shutting down a school system is dissipated. But the top level of the UFT would continue to flourish as dues keeps flowing in. They know this and will try to keep the lid on the cap not to protect public schools but to keep the dues rolling in.
On Green Dot charters, which the UFT has made a big deal of
"Green Dot took over Locke High School in Los Angeles to much fanfare. They cleaned up the school, established order, provided good maintenance. But after a year of publicity about the Locke miracle, the scores came out and they had not changed by even 1 percent. Of course, scores are not all that matter, and they are not always a good indicator of school quality. But the fanfare got a little quieter when it became a matter of record that the students had not turned overnight into college-ready scholars simply because private managers took over."
Leo Casey claimed at last week's forum that the UFT/Green Dot contract was better than ours.
Unity/UFT less than subtle attempts to stifle discussion
"I am shocked that anyone would suggest you might be disciplined by the NYC Department of Education for your free expression of opinion, including criticism of your bosses."
This was a response to UFT/Unity Caucus ideologue Peter Goodman's comments, with lots of others jumping in. I suggest you read through the thread to get the full gist.
Here is Goldstein's message to the staff of Francis Lewis HS:
Dear colleagues,
I’m running with ICE/TJC for the UFT High School Executive Board, and I’m asking for your vote. Given events of the last few years, like the disastrous 2005 contract, the union’s support of mayoral control, the erosion of seniority rights, the advent of perpetual lunch duty and hall patrol, and the inability to grieve letters in a file simply for their being incorrect, I’ve determined there’s a need for a new voice in the UFT.
I’d like to be that voice.
Unity is an invitation-only caucus that’s controlled the UFT since its inception. When people join, they agree not to vary from Unity positions in public. Whatever Unity tells them to say, they say. Essentially, it’s a loyalty oath. In recent times, many of Unity’s decisions, like those listed above, have not benefitted working teachers.
There is another caucus called New Action. It supports the top of the Unity ticket, pretty much guaranteeing more of the same. It was once an opposition party, but in 2003 Randi Weingarten bought them off with patronage jobs and a few seats on the UFT Executive Board. With your help ICE/ TJC can claim those seats and bring real independent voices and thoughts to our union leadership.
If elected, I will be your voice not only here, but also on the UFT. I will not support measures that hurt working teachers, or any UFT members. I will vigorously oppose measures that appease Bloomberg and Klein with vague promises of benefits to come. Such measures have not served us well.
I will fight for a fair contract, for professional treatment, the retention of tenure, and the concept that a raise means more pay for doing the same job—not for extra time, extra duties, and fewer benefits and privileges.
Please check ICE/TJC on your ballot. Vote for a change in the UFT.
After 50 years, it’s time.
Best regards,
Arthur Goldstein, UFT Chapter Leader
Robotics
Well, it's off for a weekend of robotics at the Javits center, where Klein is supposed to make an appearance at 9AM this morning. I'll be doing my hair, but will get there later. I will be there all day Sunday handling registration for the 80 NYC teams taking part in the FIRST LEGO League tournament. Come on down. And you can also check out the over 60 high school teams from around the nation doing the big robots - they are there today too.
Friday, March 12, 2010
New ICE Leaflet: UFT ELection Ballots Go Out Today
For the next few weeks I will be focusing on the UFT elections. Today the ballots go out and must be returned by April 6. Naturally you should mark the box for ICE-TJC and return it as soon as you can. If you read this blog (other than the Unity slugs) you know full well the situation the UFT mis-leadership has put you in. Does ICE-TJC have all the answers at this time? Of course not. Is the platform perfect? I don't agree with everything. But when putting together an effort like this we all have to give a bit. One thing: we would run a democratic union no matter what. Now I pointed out the realities yesterday. But the outpouring of support and energy this time has surprised even me. Is it anywhere near the Unity machine? No way. But the key is it is building. Yesterday I was at a Get Out the Vote session by Teachers Unite and NYCORE. To see younger teachers ready to get involved is enlightening. They understand that this is a building process and are all excited about continuing to build over the next few years.
Here is the latest ICE leaflet which I finished at 3:30 AM. As usual, it went through what James Eterno terms the ICE meatgrinder. If you want copies for your school email me at normsco@gmail.com.
Here is the latest ICE leaflet which I finished at 3:30 AM. As usual, it went through what James Eterno terms the ICE meatgrinder. If you want copies for your school email me at normsco@gmail.com.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
UFT/Unity Uses Paid Employees to Suppress Opposition in Union Election
UPDATED, 8:40 am, Mar. 11
It has long been known how the UFT/Unity machine uses paid personnel in union elections. As most schools have Unity chapter leaders, they have a ready means of keeping control of the schools. But when they are faced with an independent chapter leader they use the district reps to try to intimidate them into not putting material in the boxes. And of course, we have constant reports of Dist. Reps going into these schools on union time to stuff Unity material in the boxes. If they see ICE-TJC lit, they even pull them out themselves.
For people who are not committed ICE or TJC activists (who they don't dare bother), these actions by the Dist Reps can be intimidating because in the union hierarchy the DR is the single most important person the CL, especially newer ones who feel very insecure in their knowledge, must deal with for help.
Now the use of this personnel has been standard operating procedure for the Unity machine.
What people don't realize is that the elections every three years for union officers are not as important as the elections for chapter leaders which occur the year before (next elections are spring 2012, which is where serious battles will take place when it becomes clear that Mulgrew will be as big a sellout as Weingarten). This is not an accident. Unity pulls in all new chapter leaders into training and uses those sessions to recruit them into Unity just in time for the big election the year after, which in most cases shuts down the ability of the opposition to reach those schools without schlepping physically into those buildings. Since ICE-TJC are working teachers, the ability to impact the vast majority of schools is minimal.
But even if they could get a leaflet into all the schools, that is minimal compared to having a thousand Unity people in the buildings actively bombarding people with pro-Unity material and intimidating people who are sympathetic to the opposition. In fact, Unity chapter leaders often just pull out the leaflets from the boxes after the ICE-TJC rep leaves. One ICE chapter leader who stuffed boxes throughout her district sent me this email:
Well, we know what is already happening this year. Yesterday I received this email from a non-ICE chapter leader who is an independent critic of the UFT leadership. It got ugly.
Now this District Rep (I am protecting the CL from retaliation of giving no support) is notoriously incompetent. When we blitzed her district in 2004 we were stopped at every single school by the Unity chapter leader, who told the principals we didn't have the right. Or they created so many delays on purpose that it just wasn't worth the time. So they win that battle. For now.
As I said, the opposition must have a critical mass of chapter leaders who will stand up to the Unity goons to make a dent. To all those who talk about the need for more ICE literature and advertising they are missing this essential point. I hear some say, "look at how Obama won!" Again they miss the point. Obama had a massive machine to support him. Over the past few years ICE and TJC have understood that and have focused on building this machine, which they had to start building from scratch when New Action, which had 40 years to build a machine, abandoned the fight and joined Unity. Much of the New Action vote, which was less than ICE-TJC last time, comes from this machine. Now that many NA people are retired, they have about 40 people going around schools pushing their stuff. And some people are not aware that they have sold out and just check the NA box thinking they are still the opposition - just this weekend a retired friend asked me if he should vote NA to vote for me. I gagged.
I can't tell you how many independent or ICE-leaning people are frightened to come out of the closet. We get anonymous pleas to put out lit but they don't send us their names and schools so we can get it to them.
Since I am available during the day, some people have asked me to come to their schools during lunch or come to a union meeting to give our point of view. Their Unity CL throws up all sorts of road blocks - like that's not allowed - but every Unity slug can come into the building at any time.
With ballots going out tomorrow (March 12) and must be returned by April 6 (the count is on Apr 7 and open to any UFT member), the consciousness about the election should rise. Since only 22% of the working teachers voted in the last election (the drop in Unity votes (and New Action too) was palpable while there was a rise in ICE-TJC votes, but still fairly negligible.
This year, we have focused on getting out the vote in the buildings we have people. For the first time we have attracted some newer teachers, including even a former Teach for America, to run with us. Still just a small group but a beginning of building that machine into the newer teacher crowd.
Teachers Unite and NYCORE have gotten involved by reaching out to their younger teacher constituency. They held a fabulous candidate forum last Friday with all 4 caucuses represented by Michael Fiorillo, Megan Behrent, Leo Casey and Michael Shulman (see a 10 minute slice:
ICE, TJC, Unity, New Action at TU/NYCORE Candidate Forum).
Today they are holding a Get Out the Vote training session (see side bar but you must rsvp as there is little space). I will be there to explain the process and take some video.
It has long been known how the UFT/Unity machine uses paid personnel in union elections. As most schools have Unity chapter leaders, they have a ready means of keeping control of the schools. But when they are faced with an independent chapter leader they use the district reps to try to intimidate them into not putting material in the boxes. And of course, we have constant reports of Dist. Reps going into these schools on union time to stuff Unity material in the boxes. If they see ICE-TJC lit, they even pull them out themselves.
For people who are not committed ICE or TJC activists (who they don't dare bother), these actions by the Dist Reps can be intimidating because in the union hierarchy the DR is the single most important person the CL, especially newer ones who feel very insecure in their knowledge, must deal with for help.
Now the use of this personnel has been standard operating procedure for the Unity machine.
What people don't realize is that the elections every three years for union officers are not as important as the elections for chapter leaders which occur the year before (next elections are spring 2012, which is where serious battles will take place when it becomes clear that Mulgrew will be as big a sellout as Weingarten). This is not an accident. Unity pulls in all new chapter leaders into training and uses those sessions to recruit them into Unity just in time for the big election the year after, which in most cases shuts down the ability of the opposition to reach those schools without schlepping physically into those buildings. Since ICE-TJC are working teachers, the ability to impact the vast majority of schools is minimal.
But even if they could get a leaflet into all the schools, that is minimal compared to having a thousand Unity people in the buildings actively bombarding people with pro-Unity material and intimidating people who are sympathetic to the opposition. In fact, Unity chapter leaders often just pull out the leaflets from the boxes after the ICE-TJC rep leaves. One ICE chapter leader who stuffed boxes throughout her district sent me this email:
Three years ago, in my district, many school chapter leaders who are Unity pulled out ICE-TJC literature and thrown them away. I have had teachers that I know call to tell me and even a security guard. Who knows what will happen this year?
Well, we know what is already happening this year. Yesterday I received this email from a non-ICE chapter leader who is an independent critic of the UFT leadership. It got ugly.
My district rep gave me an argument about putting ICE flyers in mailboxes. She said that everything gets back to her. I said that I have the right to do this, just as the New Action person had the right to come to my school and distribute, and that she had the right to come to do this.
She said that she doesn't see how I can think that a chapter leader could run the union. I pointed out that Mulgrew was a chapter leader, and so was she.
She was disgusting. Told me I am a member of Ice (you and I know that I'm not). I pointed out that Weingarten laid the groundwork for many of the problems that we are dealing with now. She said Weingarten isn't there anymore. I said that RW handpicked Mulgrew.
I mentioned Diane Ravitch. She said that Ravitch is mentoring Mulgrew. !!!!!!
Are they very threatened?
Now this District Rep (I am protecting the CL from retaliation of giving no support) is notoriously incompetent. When we blitzed her district in 2004 we were stopped at every single school by the Unity chapter leader, who told the principals we didn't have the right. Or they created so many delays on purpose that it just wasn't worth the time. So they win that battle. For now.
As I said, the opposition must have a critical mass of chapter leaders who will stand up to the Unity goons to make a dent. To all those who talk about the need for more ICE literature and advertising they are missing this essential point. I hear some say, "look at how Obama won!" Again they miss the point. Obama had a massive machine to support him. Over the past few years ICE and TJC have understood that and have focused on building this machine, which they had to start building from scratch when New Action, which had 40 years to build a machine, abandoned the fight and joined Unity. Much of the New Action vote, which was less than ICE-TJC last time, comes from this machine. Now that many NA people are retired, they have about 40 people going around schools pushing their stuff. And some people are not aware that they have sold out and just check the NA box thinking they are still the opposition - just this weekend a retired friend asked me if he should vote NA to vote for me. I gagged.
I can't tell you how many independent or ICE-leaning people are frightened to come out of the closet. We get anonymous pleas to put out lit but they don't send us their names and schools so we can get it to them.
Since I am available during the day, some people have asked me to come to their schools during lunch or come to a union meeting to give our point of view. Their Unity CL throws up all sorts of road blocks - like that's not allowed - but every Unity slug can come into the building at any time.
With ballots going out tomorrow (March 12) and must be returned by April 6 (the count is on Apr 7 and open to any UFT member), the consciousness about the election should rise. Since only 22% of the working teachers voted in the last election (the drop in Unity votes (and New Action too) was palpable while there was a rise in ICE-TJC votes, but still fairly negligible.
This year, we have focused on getting out the vote in the buildings we have people. For the first time we have attracted some newer teachers, including even a former Teach for America, to run with us. Still just a small group but a beginning of building that machine into the newer teacher crowd.
Teachers Unite and NYCORE have gotten involved by reaching out to their younger teacher constituency. They held a fabulous candidate forum last Friday with all 4 caucuses represented by Michael Fiorillo, Megan Behrent, Leo Casey and Michael Shulman (see a 10 minute slice:
ICE, TJC, Unity, New Action at TU/NYCORE Candidate Forum).
Today they are holding a Get Out the Vote training session (see side bar but you must rsvp as there is little space). I will be there to explain the process and take some video.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Can a Cold-Hearted Principal Woo Parents Effectively?
Today's NY Times had an interesting article on how public schools have to market themselves to compete with charters.
Pressed by Charters, Harlem Public Schools Turn to Marketing ...
Given that the article focused on Harlem's PS 125 principal Rafaela Espinal, this may be the first time I was rooting for the charters. Espinal is the Leadership Academy principal from hell. For 5 years she was in charge of the school I spent 27 years teaching at in Williamsburg. My former colleagues, those in and those out of the rubber room, say she is as cold-hearted a person as there is.
She alienated teachers and parents equally. (Her now ex husband supposedly worked for Bloomberg.) When the teachers heard she was back in the system after a year in Jersey, they planned on sending condolence cards to the staff of PS 125. Sure enough, she wasn't at the school for more than a month than I heard she had sent her first teacher to the rubber room. It certainly won't be the last. (If I had time I would tell the worst of Espinal stories - they are legendary.)
Now my old school has another Leadership Academy principal - who everyone loves. A real human being with charm and humor. Can the LA actually graduate normal people?
I compared visits to the school during Espinal's tenure and post Espinal – everyone looked 10 years younger after she was gone. Just a sign of what a destructive principal can do to people. And what an enlightened one can do too. Now the school's grade, due to a more honest administration that wants more than test prep by offering enrichment, has dropped a bit. In the world of Tweed we know that Espinal is their ideal. That is the shame of the BloomKlein admin.
By the way, PS 125, the Ralph Bunche School, was the first school in the nation to have the internet due to one of the most advanced technology teachers ever - Paul Reese - who was eased out as the Dist. Tech coordinator - he was the only one in the city who insisted on doing some teaching and that didn't always sit well with the bureaucrats who wanted him always available - in case they couldn't find the socket to plug in their computers.
Now my old school has another Leadership Academy principal - who everyone loves. A real human being with charm and humor. Can the LA actually graduate normal people?
I compared visits to the school during Espinal's tenure and post Espinal – everyone looked 10 years younger after she was gone. Just a sign of what a destructive principal can do to people. And what an enlightened one can do too. Now the school's grade, due to a more honest administration that wants more than test prep by offering enrichment, has dropped a bit. In the world of Tweed we know that Espinal is their ideal. That is the shame of the BloomKlein admin.
By the way, PS 125, the Ralph Bunche School, was the first school in the nation to have the internet due to one of the most advanced technology teachers ever - Paul Reese - who was eased out as the Dist. Tech coordinator - he was the only one in the city who insisted on doing some teaching and that didn't always sit well with the bureaucrats who wanted him always available - in case they couldn't find the socket to plug in their computers.
NY1 Ad for Harlem Success Academy this morning!
From Steve Koss to NYCEDNEWS:
Wow, I am simply stunned! At 9:20 am on Wednesday, March 10, I watched a 15-20 second, voiced-over TV ad on NY1 for Eva Moskowitz's Harlem Success Academy.
I have never seen a TV ad for ANY school in NYC, public or private or charter. These people not only have no shame, they seem to have so much money they don't even know what to do with it. It's not only wasteful and (in my opinion) immoral to be buying TV advertising for elementary schools, it's just plain weird.
Why would a school that proudly proclaims its admissions even-handedness by lottery, which they and their supporters persistently insist is hugely oversubscribed, need to spend money on TV advertising? To get even more applications, so they can be even more oversubscribed and turn even more parents and children away? Or is that part of their "we need more charter schools" strategy? If so, who's really paying for this TV time? Couldn't whoever is behind this find a more socially useful way to use their money to benefit needy schools and children around NYC?
I am just sad and disgusted to see things come to this. Surprised the ad didn't feature Joel Klein as a talking head, doing a Slap Chop gig for Ms. Eva.
Geez, is it just me?
Steve Koss
Related: See today's NY Times piece on how Harlem public schools have to compete. But there's a fly in the ointment which I'll write about later.
Wow, I am simply stunned! At 9:20 am on Wednesday, March 10, I watched a 15-20 second, voiced-over TV ad on NY1 for Eva Moskowitz's Harlem Success Academy.
I have never seen a TV ad for ANY school in NYC, public or private or charter. These people not only have no shame, they seem to have so much money they don't even know what to do with it. It's not only wasteful and (in my opinion) immoral to be buying TV advertising for elementary schools, it's just plain weird.
Why would a school that proudly proclaims its admissions even-handedness by lottery, which they and their supporters persistently insist is hugely oversubscribed, need to spend money on TV advertising? To get even more applications, so they can be even more oversubscribed and turn even more parents and children away? Or is that part of their "we need more charter schools" strategy? If so, who's really paying for this TV time? Couldn't whoever is behind this find a more socially useful way to use their money to benefit needy schools and children around NYC?
I am just sad and disgusted to see things come to this. Surprised the ad didn't feature Joel Klein as a talking head, doing a Slap Chop gig for Ms. Eva.
Geez, is it just me?
Steve Koss
Related: See today's NY Times piece on how Harlem public schools have to compete. But there's a fly in the ointment which I'll write about later.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
ICE, TJC, Unity, New Action at TU/NYCORE Candidate Forum
On March 5 candidates from each of the 4 caucuses in the UFT held a candidates forum sponsored by NYCORE and Teachers Unite. There's a lot I could say about this event but for now I'll leave the videos talk for themselves. There is about 2 hours worth and since you-tube has 10 minute limits I will put them up in sections, unedited if possible.
Here is the final summing up where each rep got 2 minutes each.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpkggISk4v0
Here is the final summing up where each rep got 2 minutes each.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpkggISk4v0
Monday, March 8, 2010
UFT PRIMER: DISTRICT REPS
An ongoing series on how the UFT works
UFT election fever is rising as ballots go out on March 12. If you notice Unity Caucus (the UFT leadership) material in your mail boxes and no one in your school put it in, it is a pretty good bet your UFT District Rep did the deed - probably on union time.
Most people do not realize these elections are secondary in terms of controlling the UFT at the school level than the elections for chapter leaders last year. The Unity machine relies on controlling an overwhelming majority of schools and using the CLs to push their positions.
The Dist. Rep is the key person in Unity control of the schools, which goes a long way to explaining why the leadership ended the practice of having chapter leaders elect district reps even though every single one of them except for one or two were Unity. Not all were the kind of Unity Caucus the leadership wants - someone who has total loyalty to the leadership instead of the chapter leaders they are supposed to serve.
The DR is the person who checks out chapter leaders for recruitment into Unity and also tries to get someone in schools to run against any opposition candidates.
I started working on this quite a while ago but events have been moving too fast. Now seems as good a time as any.
The original impetus for this post came from an anonymous email to ICE-mail from someone who is probably a chapter leader who wrote:
I need a crash course: Can someone tell me about District Reps?
Here is my initial response:
District reps in many ways are the most important positions in the union for the leadership - the keys to Unity Caucus' control and domination. They are the overseers of the chapter leaders in their districts. They push the leadership position and treat chapter leaders as if they are union employees. Every single one of them is in Unity Caucus. I know some great non-Unity chapter leaders, not understanding the real role of district reps is to keep chapter leaders from straying and keeping tabs on critical voices at the school level, innocently applied for the job not understanding that servicing the members is not their primary duty.
The district rep structure still basically follows the old NYCBOE structure that existed under decentralization from 1969 on, which is when Shanker created the DR position, which by the way has no mention in the UFT constitution. (More on that later.)
Thus there is a DR for the elementary and middle schools in each of the old 32 districts which only dealt with k-8 and another DR for each borough high school district (Charlie Friedman covers Basis- part of Brooklyn and Staten Island). Other DRs have been created for small high schools in various boroughs. And there is a DR for District 75 (SpecEd) and probably a few more - if I left some out let me know.
Until 2002, District Reps were elected by the chapter leaders in the district with a weighted vote based on the number of members in the school. Thus, the DRs had to some extent cater to their constituency, which wasn't the rank and file but the CLs, most of whom were Unity Caucus. Thus every single DR in history was also Unity - save one. But even within Unity there was some competition. Take the Queens HS DR race many years ago where 2nd in command under Feldman and Weingarten, Tom Pappas wanted to install a relative into the position but many Unity CLs didn't think he deserved it. They united with some New Action people to elect Rona Freiser who now heads the Queens office.
I'll digress for a second and talk about that exception to the rule.
Many of use called for direct election of DRs by all the members in the district but even some opposition people were opposed to that, especially New Action when they were an opposition, claiming it made sense for the people who dealt with the DRs
Here is the rest of the email I received. My responses to the questions are in bold.
UFT election fever is rising as ballots go out on March 12. If you notice Unity Caucus (the UFT leadership) material in your mail boxes and no one in your school put it in, it is a pretty good bet your UFT District Rep did the deed - probably on union time.
Most people do not realize these elections are secondary in terms of controlling the UFT at the school level than the elections for chapter leaders last year. The Unity machine relies on controlling an overwhelming majority of schools and using the CLs to push their positions.
The Dist. Rep is the key person in Unity control of the schools, which goes a long way to explaining why the leadership ended the practice of having chapter leaders elect district reps even though every single one of them except for one or two were Unity. Not all were the kind of Unity Caucus the leadership wants - someone who has total loyalty to the leadership instead of the chapter leaders they are supposed to serve.
The DR is the person who checks out chapter leaders for recruitment into Unity and also tries to get someone in schools to run against any opposition candidates.
I started working on this quite a while ago but events have been moving too fast. Now seems as good a time as any.
The original impetus for this post came from an anonymous email to ICE-mail from someone who is probably a chapter leader who wrote:
I need a crash course: Can someone tell me about District Reps?
Here is my initial response:
District reps in many ways are the most important positions in the union for the leadership - the keys to Unity Caucus' control and domination. They are the overseers of the chapter leaders in their districts. They push the leadership position and treat chapter leaders as if they are union employees. Every single one of them is in Unity Caucus. I know some great non-Unity chapter leaders, not understanding the real role of district reps is to keep chapter leaders from straying and keeping tabs on critical voices at the school level, innocently applied for the job not understanding that servicing the members is not their primary duty.
The district rep structure still basically follows the old NYCBOE structure that existed under decentralization from 1969 on, which is when Shanker created the DR position, which by the way has no mention in the UFT constitution. (More on that later.)
Thus there is a DR for the elementary and middle schools in each of the old 32 districts which only dealt with k-8 and another DR for each borough high school district (Charlie Friedman covers Basis- part of Brooklyn and Staten Island). Other DRs have been created for small high schools in various boroughs. And there is a DR for District 75 (SpecEd) and probably a few more - if I left some out let me know.
Until 2002, District Reps were elected by the chapter leaders in the district with a weighted vote based on the number of members in the school. Thus, the DRs had to some extent cater to their constituency, which wasn't the rank and file but the CLs, most of whom were Unity Caucus. Thus every single DR in history was also Unity - save one. But even within Unity there was some competition. Take the Queens HS DR race many years ago where 2nd in command under Feldman and Weingarten, Tom Pappas wanted to install a relative into the position but many Unity CLs didn't think he deserved it. They united with some New Action people to elect Rona Freiser who now heads the Queens office.
I'll digress for a second and talk about that exception to the rule.
Many of use called for direct election of DRs by all the members in the district but even some opposition people were opposed to that, especially New Action when they were an opposition, claiming it made sense for the people who dealt with the DRs
Here is the rest of the email I received. My responses to the questions are in bold.
Mine's new... and apparently unresponsive. I had a supremely inert DR for years and years and I'm, worried that new guy may be cut from the same mold.
But: I don't really understand the fundamentals.
Ergo:
1. Are they paid for their UFT service? If so, how much?
District Reps are DOE employees and paid accordingly - on paper. They supposedly teach one period a day and other than that period the UFT reimburses the DOE for the entire salary. Thus they continue to get salary and pension credit. They get paid extra based on the hours they put in after school ends. Thus, they often get as much as 30,ooo in addition to their DOE salary. And they also get a 2nd pension from the UFT.
2. How does one become a DR? Election, selection, etc
District reps are chosen by the UFT president but they go through a sham of holding interviews. Elections used to be by chapter leaders in the districts by weighted vote depending on the number of members in a school. An individual middle school carried more weight than an elementary school.
3. Do they actually TEACH? FT? PT?
They teach one period a day before 10 AM. Usually these are puff classes or some tutorials.
4. Any way to go over their heads.. so to speak? With whom would I communicate if I feel the DR is not doing an adequate job?
There is no way to really go over their heads without them knowing since the UFT runs on a chain of command. They will know and be pissed. If you don't care - and I think putting heat on them is a good thing but the next level is the borough head and they are all part of "the team." You could go straight to central at the staff director level - Leroy Barr. But don't expect much. Service is not the UFT priority. They view CLs as their servants and the DR as the overseer.
5. Any other ideas about responsible ways of applying pressure would be appreciated.
They hold monthly district chapter leader meetings and if you are a CL raising it there in a public manner might get a response.
As Willy Loman's wife said: "Attention must be paid."
Public exposure is the way to get attention paid.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Forum on the IMPACT OF CHARTER SCHOOLS! Wednesday, March 10th, 4:30-7
GEM and CAPE are having an important forum on CHARTER SCHOOLS! This is an unusual opportunity to learn about NYC public school communities experiences of charter take overs. Hear from parents and teachers about their struggles to defend their schools from unfair and unwanted "co-locations". Find out how people are defending themselves against privatization and how you can get involved in the struggle!
Impact of Charter Schools & School
Closings on Public Education and
What We Can Do About It
March 10, Weds.
4:30 - 7 PM
Bedford Library
496 Franklin Ave – Brooklyn
C Train to Franklin Ave.
Sponsors:
GEM - Grassroots Education Movement
CAPE - Concerned Advocates for Public Education
The Insidious Nature of Green's Sunday Times Article
UPDATED Mar. 8, 12 am with Aaron Pallas comment and you must read Jim Horn's piece at Schools Matter.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/03/teachers-are-built-non-school-of.html
I learned the most about teaching from other teachers. Duh!
BIGGEST SIN: CLASS SIZE ISSUES OFF THE TABLE
CHECK BIO OF MAIN CHARACTER DOUG LEMOV*.
CAN THIS GUY HOLD DOWN ONE JOB? LIKE ACTUALLY TRY TEACHING ON ONE PLACE FOR A LITTLE WHILE. GIVES YOU A BIT OF PERSPECTIVE, YOU KNOW. I THINK THAT PEOPLE LIKE LEMOV LEAVE TEACHING FULL-TIME BECAUSE THEY DON'T LOVE IT ENOUGH TO STAY.
Forgot test scores, measure the love quotient when you talk about teachers who can te
ach others.
There's a lot more than teacher methodology underlying Green's article which I talked about yesterday. It seem to look like not standard ed deform stuff by de-emphasizing incentives and firing teachers. But when you dig a little it is ed deform. The Times wouldn't print anything less.
A parent commented on the NYCEdNews list:
Exactly what were the other PARTS than test scores?
A lot of the last part of the article is good touchy, feely stuff - good ideas for teachers to use. And we all can benefit. Talk of the video taping set me to chuckling. I was involved in a program to improve teaching by video taping lessons and cataloguing the kinds of questions I was asking - in 1969.
I learned so much of what is talked about in this article (which offers a blueprint of the high and mighty descending to give actual working teachers "The Word") by seeing experienced WORKING teachers (are there any left) in the context of working in their class - in action. I adapted their stuff to my personality and made a lot of it work. Almost every teacher I ever knew had mastered classroom management - at least 85% of them - or they left, often to become people who end up training other teachers.
What if every so-called great teacher who left to become some guru actually stayed in the classroom and taught for an entire career? Maybe close the achievement gap (that's a joke folks.)
"What makes a good teacher" asks Elizabeth? She asked all the wrong people.
She could have talked teacher quality with teachers in the trenches...
People like
Pissed Off
Chaz's School Daze
Under Assault
NYC Educator
Accountable Talk
Have a Gneiss Day
The Jose Vilson: The Blog
And the newer generation of teachers: It's Not All Flowers and Sausages
Mrs Mimi said the other day:
Instead Green spoke to:
Doug Lemov: "after a successful career as a teacher, a principal and a charter school founder."
Successful? Based on what? I love this: Lemov "set out to become a teacher of teachers [because] he was shamefully aware of his own limitations." So he left teaching. Nice.
And Deborah Loewenberg Ball, "an assistant professor who also taught math part time at an East Lansing elementary school and whose classroom was a model for teachers in training."
[Note this comment from Columbia prof Aaron Pallas:
Aaron Pallas said...
- when people you respect speak, I listen so I take it back. 13 years is a serious amount of time in a classroom. I wonder though how views change in the midst of the ed deform movement. I'll try to say more about what I think it would take to upgrade teaching and also on the accountability question - I always felt my major accountability was to parents and students not bureaucrats.]
What about trying full time teaching, year after year, decade after decade? You gain a certain perspective and context when you talk to teachers. Then talk to us about training teachers.
In my 6 week summer of training to become a teacher in 1967, all my instructors were teachers, assistant principals and principals (in those years supervisors actually had to teach for a long time before rising up) and I learned more from them and my later colleagues than anyone.
What Green has done under the guise of what looks like a more genial approach than Joel Klein's "lets go on a witch hunt" using Lemov's "we can't replace them fast enough, so let's retrain those heathens" is to validate the ed deform model of blame the teachers.
Green's biggest sin: She used the words "reformers" and Michelle Rhee in the same sentence.
Related: South Bronx School blog does some research into Doug Lemov and why Whitney Tilson likes him and as he so often does, takes it over the top.
Whitney Tilson Is In Love With Doug Lemov
*Thanks to SBS for the bio:
.......Founder of School Performance, an Albany-based non-profit that provides diagnostic assessments, performance data analysis, and academic consulting to high performing charter schools. He is a founder and the former principal of the Academy of the Pacific Rim Charter School in Boston, regarded as one of the highest performing urban charter schools in the country. After leaving Academy of the Pacific Rim, Mr. Lemov served as the Vice President for Accountability at the State University of New York Charter Schools Institute, the leading authorizer of charters in New York, where he designed and implemented a rigorous school accountability system. He has since served as a consultant to such organizations as KIPP, New Leaders for New Schools, and Building Excellent Schools. Mr. Lemov is a Trustee of the New York Charter Schools Association and of KIPP Tech Valley Charter School. He has a B.A. from Hamilton College, an M.A. from Indiana University, and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.
Let's see. When I was 42 years old, I had taught 17 years of self-contained grades 4-6 classes and one year as a special ed cluster, mostly in one school while getting MA's in Reading instruction and computer science.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/03/teachers-are-built-non-school-of.html
I learned the most about teaching from other teachers. Duh!
BIGGEST SIN: CLASS SIZE ISSUES OFF THE TABLE
CHECK BIO OF MAIN CHARACTER DOUG LEMOV*.
CAN THIS GUY HOLD DOWN ONE JOB? LIKE ACTUALLY TRY TEACHING ON ONE PLACE FOR A LITTLE WHILE. GIVES YOU A BIT OF PERSPECTIVE, YOU KNOW. I THINK THAT PEOPLE LIKE LEMOV LEAVE TEACHING FULL-TIME BECAUSE THEY DON'T LOVE IT ENOUGH TO STAY.
Forgot test scores, measure the love quotient when you talk about teachers who can te
ach others.There's a lot more than teacher methodology underlying Green's article which I talked about yesterday. It seem to look like not standard ed deform stuff by de-emphasizing incentives and firing teachers. But when you dig a little it is ed deform. The Times wouldn't print anything less.
A parent commented on the NYCEdNews list:
I thought the piece was generally valuable in looking at actual classroom practices and considering their relationship to content, and challenging the effectiveness of carrot-and-stick approaches to improved learning. But I was startled that she cited the "value-added" model several times without skepticism, particularly stating that teachers' stats for raising student performance are consistent over time. I thought that statistical argument had been debunked. Diane Ravitch makes a strong case in her new book that studies show that teachers' stats for improving student test scores fluctuate dramatically over time and are not a predictor of future performance.Of course Green had to ignore the research that shows value-added is unproven because the rest of the thesis laid out doesn't work without it. The article is all about measuring by test scores. My favorite quote "he [Lemov} decided to seek out the best teachers he could find – as defined PARTLY [my emph] by their students' test scores [which can so easily be manipulated]..
Exactly what were the other PARTS than test scores?
A lot of the last part of the article is good touchy, feely stuff - good ideas for teachers to use. And we all can benefit. Talk of the video taping set me to chuckling. I was involved in a program to improve teaching by video taping lessons and cataloguing the kinds of questions I was asking - in 1969.
I learned so much of what is talked about in this article (which offers a blueprint of the high and mighty descending to give actual working teachers "The Word") by seeing experienced WORKING teachers (are there any left) in the context of working in their class - in action. I adapted their stuff to my personality and made a lot of it work. Almost every teacher I ever knew had mastered classroom management - at least 85% of them - or they left, often to become people who end up training other teachers.
What if every so-called great teacher who left to become some guru actually stayed in the classroom and taught for an entire career? Maybe close the achievement gap (that's a joke folks.)
"What makes a good teacher" asks Elizabeth? She asked all the wrong people.
She could have talked teacher quality with teachers in the trenches...
People like
Pissed Off
Chaz's School Daze
Under Assault
NYC Educator
Accountable Talk
Have a Gneiss Day
The Jose Vilson: The Blog
And the newer generation of teachers: It's Not All Flowers and Sausages
Mrs Mimi said the other day:
WHY ARE WE GIVING POWER TO EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER COME IN CONTACT WITH A SCHOOL OR THOUGHT ABOUT SCHOOL OR SAID THE WORD "SCHOOL" EXCEPT FOR TEACHERS???!?!?!
Riddle me that one.
Perhaps it's because we want them to remain Candidate Numero Uno on the old chopping block when it comes time to passing around some blame. Or keep them in our line of sight so that they are at a arms reach for some extensive finger pointing?
Instead Green spoke to:
Doug Lemov: "after a successful career as a teacher, a principal and a charter school founder."
Successful? Based on what? I love this: Lemov "set out to become a teacher of teachers [because] he was shamefully aware of his own limitations." So he left teaching. Nice.
And Deborah Loewenberg Ball, "an assistant professor who also taught math part time at an East Lansing elementary school and whose classroom was a model for teachers in training."
[Note this comment from Columbia prof Aaron Pallas:
Aaron Pallas said...
Norm,
You're a bit harsh on Deborah Ball, my former colleague at Michigan State. She was a full-time elementary classroom teacher from 1975 to 1988 before and during graduate school -- and continued teaching third and fourth grade mathematics for four years as an assistant professor. Not a dilettante by any stretch of the imagination.
- when people you respect speak, I listen so I take it back. 13 years is a serious amount of time in a classroom. I wonder though how views change in the midst of the ed deform movement. I'll try to say more about what I think it would take to upgrade teaching and also on the accountability question - I always felt my major accountability was to parents and students not bureaucrats.]
What about trying full time teaching, year after year, decade after decade? You gain a certain perspective and context when you talk to teachers. Then talk to us about training teachers.
In my 6 week summer of training to become a teacher in 1967, all my instructors were teachers, assistant principals and principals (in those years supervisors actually had to teach for a long time before rising up) and I learned more from them and my later colleagues than anyone.
What Green has done under the guise of what looks like a more genial approach than Joel Klein's "lets go on a witch hunt" using Lemov's "we can't replace them fast enough, so let's retrain those heathens" is to validate the ed deform model of blame the teachers.
Green's biggest sin: She used the words "reformers" and Michelle Rhee in the same sentence.
Related: South Bronx School blog does some research into Doug Lemov and why Whitney Tilson likes him and as he so often does, takes it over the top.
Whitney Tilson Is In Love With Doug Lemov
*Thanks to SBS for the bio:
.......Founder of School Performance, an Albany-based non-profit that provides diagnostic assessments, performance data analysis, and academic consulting to high performing charter schools. He is a founder and the former principal of the Academy of the Pacific Rim Charter School in Boston, regarded as one of the highest performing urban charter schools in the country. After leaving Academy of the Pacific Rim, Mr. Lemov served as the Vice President for Accountability at the State University of New York Charter Schools Institute, the leading authorizer of charters in New York, where he designed and implemented a rigorous school accountability system. He has since served as a consultant to such organizations as KIPP, New Leaders for New Schools, and Building Excellent Schools. Mr. Lemov is a Trustee of the New York Charter Schools Association and of KIPP Tech Valley Charter School. He has a B.A. from Hamilton College, an M.A. from Indiana University, and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.
Let's see. When I was 42 years old, I had taught 17 years of self-contained grades 4-6 classes and one year as a special ed cluster, mostly in one school while getting MA's in Reading instruction and computer science.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Elizabeth Green's Front Page Sunday Mag Article on Teachers - I'll Hold My Congratulations
I've only read a third of the article, Building a Better Teacher, but I'm heading for the treadmill at the gym to finish it. So far I am not happy based on who is quoted - Klein, Rhee, Gates and Hanushek. It's all about the teacher. All other factors disappear in a sea of data. I saw so many things in the first 2 pages to criticize I could not go on.
This quote should get some people riled:
"A new generation of economists devised statistical methods to measure 'value-added' to a student's performance by almost every factor imaginable: class size versus per-pupil funding versus curriculum. When researchers ran the numbers in dozens of different studies, every factor under a school's control produced just a tiny impact, except fro one: which teacher the student had been assigned to."
Elizabeth's homework is to read the first week of posts from Eduwonkette, which dealt with the issue of teacher quality in depth. After I finish reading Elizabeth's article we'll decide if we should add Elizabeth the kick line.
EDUWONKETTE (JENNIFER JENNINGS)
Sunday, September 23, 2007
From Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg to George Miller and Checker Finn, we’re awash in chatter about measuring and rewarding teacher effectiveness. This week I’ll consider some of the problems with these proposals. What’s missing from this discussion, I argue, is a full exploration of their potential consequences for students, teachers, and schools.
Let me note that I am not opposed to measuring and rewarding teacher effectiveness in principle. But it’s more complicated than most commentators would like to acknowledge, and I hope this week’s postings will help us think about that complexity.
Monday: Tunnel vision syndrome - The teacher effectiveness debate focuses only on a narrow set of the goals of public education, which may endanger other important goals we have for our schools.
Tuesday: No teacher is an island - The teacher effectiveness debate ignores that teachers play many roles in a school. Experienced teachers often serve as anchoring forces in addition to teaching students in their own classrooms. If we don’t acknowledge this interdependence, we may destabilize schools altogether.
Wednesday: Ignoring the great sorting machine - If students were randomly assigned to classrooms and schools, measuring teacher effects would be a much more straightforward enterprise. But when Mrs. Jones is assigned the lowest achievers, and Mrs. Scott’s kids are in the gifted and talented program, matters are complicated immeasurably.
Thursday: Overlooking the oops factor - Everything in the world is measured with error, and the best research on teacher effectiveness takes this very seriously. Yet many of those hailing teacher effectiveness proposals missed out on Statistics 101.
Friday: Disregarding labor market effects - The nature of evaluation affects not only current teachers, but who chooses to join the profession in the future and where they are willing to teach. If we don’t acknowledge that kids that are further behind are harder to pull up, we risk creating yet another incentive for teachers to avoid the toughest schools.
(Kickline roster (from left to right): Eli Broad (Broad Foundation), Kati Haycock (Ed Trust), Michael Bloomberg (NYC), Michael Petrilli and Checker Finn (Fordham).)
That's it for my blast from Eduwonkette past. Elizabeth Green is assigned to write each post 20 times on the blackboard. Or in Powerpoint.
This quote should get some people riled:
"A new generation of economists devised statistical methods to measure 'value-added' to a student's performance by almost every factor imaginable: class size versus per-pupil funding versus curriculum. When researchers ran the numbers in dozens of different studies, every factor under a school's control produced just a tiny impact, except fro one: which teacher the student had been assigned to."
Elizabeth's homework is to read the first week of posts from Eduwonkette, which dealt with the issue of teacher quality in depth. After I finish reading Elizabeth's article we'll decide if we should add Elizabeth the kick line.
EDUWONKETTE (JENNIFER JENNINGS)
Sunday, September 23, 2007
The Teacher Effectiveness Kickline
From Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg to George Miller and Checker Finn, we’re awash in chatter about measuring and rewarding teacher effectiveness. This week I’ll consider some of the problems with these proposals. What’s missing from this discussion, I argue, is a full exploration of their potential consequences for students, teachers, and schools.Let me note that I am not opposed to measuring and rewarding teacher effectiveness in principle. But it’s more complicated than most commentators would like to acknowledge, and I hope this week’s postings will help us think about that complexity.
Monday: Tunnel vision syndrome - The teacher effectiveness debate focuses only on a narrow set of the goals of public education, which may endanger other important goals we have for our schools.
Tuesday: No teacher is an island - The teacher effectiveness debate ignores that teachers play many roles in a school. Experienced teachers often serve as anchoring forces in addition to teaching students in their own classrooms. If we don’t acknowledge this interdependence, we may destabilize schools altogether.
Wednesday: Ignoring the great sorting machine - If students were randomly assigned to classrooms and schools, measuring teacher effects would be a much more straightforward enterprise. But when Mrs. Jones is assigned the lowest achievers, and Mrs. Scott’s kids are in the gifted and talented program, matters are complicated immeasurably.
Thursday: Overlooking the oops factor - Everything in the world is measured with error, and the best research on teacher effectiveness takes this very seriously. Yet many of those hailing teacher effectiveness proposals missed out on Statistics 101.
Friday: Disregarding labor market effects - The nature of evaluation affects not only current teachers, but who chooses to join the profession in the future and where they are willing to teach. If we don’t acknowledge that kids that are further behind are harder to pull up, we risk creating yet another incentive for teachers to avoid the toughest schools.
Here we are at mile 26 of the teacher effectiveness marathon - the previous posts are all archived here.
One of the summer’s highlights was a talk at AEI by Chicago labor economist Derek Neal. (Footnote: AEI talks generally make me want to impale myself on a Powerpoint projector, but this one was exceptional.) For those who weren’t there, you can watch the video here.
Neal found that low-performing kids in Chicago got shafted when the Chicago accountability system went into place, and again after NCLB was implemented. His talk wasn’t about teacher labor markets, but he made a critical point in this area. If the measurement of teacher effectiveness doesn’t take into account that some kids start off further behind that others and I am labeled a bad teacher as a result, why would I teach in a low-performing school? We have a hard enough time staffing these schools to begin with, in part because of salary differentials but also because of working conditions. If these teachers feel disrespected as professionals because the measurement system doesn’t acknowledge that they have a tougher job, I predict that we’re going to have a harder time recruiting and retaining teachers in these schools. This is conjecture, I know – we really have very little evidence about such a system because no one has implemented a comprehensive teacher effectiveness plan yet. (If you know of any studies on this issue, please email them to me.)
The best part, I thought, was towards the end of the discussion, where Doug Mesecar (Asst. Secretary at Ed) and Neal go back and forth in response to Mesecar’s question, “Are you saying our teachers are not professionals?”, i.e. that they're not good enough to get everyone to proficiency no matter how far behind they start. Most folks back down when challenged with the “soft bigotry of low expectations” rhetoric, but Neal was having none of it.
That’s it for teacher effectiveness, folks – I hope that this week has made you think through some of the issues we don’t hear much about in this debate.
(Kickline roster (from left to right): Eli Broad (Broad Foundation), Kati Haycock (Ed Trust), Michael Bloomberg (NYC), Michael Petrilli and Checker Finn (Fordham).)
That's it for my blast from Eduwonkette past. Elizabeth Green is assigned to write each post 20 times on the blackboard. Or in Powerpoint.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Shouts at Rally on City Hall Steps: "Klein Must Go"
Just as Jitu Weusi is about to speak, Joel Klein goes by and gets greeted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIN2ZtYJohs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIN2ZtYJohs
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