Lafayette, South Shore, Tilden to Close - UFT Goes Along for the Ride

From Lafayette HS:

"It's official now. Lafayette will have no freshman class next year, and three to four new schools will start moving into the building. UFT VP for HS Frank V. and Dist. Rep Charlie F. were there to answer questions. 50% of new school positions are guaranteed to Lafayette teachers, we were told. We were also told South Shore and Tilden will meet he same fate. Even though the announcement by the DOE was not unexpected, we are stunned by the news."

The DOE attack on large schools continues. Instead of putting in the resources necessary to fix these schools, the DOE will allow 4 schools to compete for resources, the most precious to them being kids who can perform. And 3 more schools full of teachers being thrown under the ATR bus.

The role of the UFT reps seems to be to smooth the way and answer questions instead of fighting like hell to keep this from happening.

Indecent Exposure

"School Scope" column reprint from The Wave, Dec. 1. 2006 by Norman Scott

After years of being part of a tiny minority in sea of BloomKlein worshippers amongst the NYC and national press corps, it’s nice to see the worm finally beginning to turn.
In recent months, we have seen articles in the mainstream press exposing some major foibles of the BloomKlein hostile takeover of the NYC school system.
Years ago, in one of my usual fits of hyperbole, I that the school systems of Kabul and Baghdad would recover sooner than the NYC school system and that one day Joel Klein will be taken out of Tweed with his coat over his head.

A short list of crimes and misdemeanors
Inflated graduation rates.
Inflated test scores and cover-ups of massive cheating scandals in addition to scores being pumped up by constant test prep. “Test-mania fuels cheating at many schools, teachers say,” said just one headline that is just the tip of the iceberg. The overwhelming majority of school personnel will remain silent due to fear. (Maria Colon, the union rep at JFK HS in the Bronx, is being persecuted and may lose her job because she exposed her administration, which has gotten off Scot-free.)
Inflated boasts for the success of the small schools where there are no at-risk students for the first 2 years (and bet on discouragement of their enrollment forever) while destroying so many children’s lives and teacher careers in large comprehensive high school.
Inflated salaries at the revolving door at Tweed.
Inflated amounts given to consultants.
Inflated claims for the impact of the reorganization that has left so many crucial services in shambles.
Inflated claims that the money saved is going to classroom instruction rather than pet projects
Inflated (enormously) gifts to real estate developers to squeeze houses anywhere they want without making arrangement to provide for adequate schools.
Inflated claims of class size reduction while NYC has the highest class sizes in the state, if not the nation. (Any reference to how teachers and schools with large class sizes can be held accountable are treated as “ excuses.”)
Every teacher and administrator who spent significant time in classrooms knew without consulting any reports or studies that these claims were lies, maybe one for the major reasons for the attacks on so many experienced teachers and administrators.
Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters reports on her listserve that an independent analysis by “Policy Studies Associates” found fewer ELL students at the small schools and that students recruited for the small schools had better test scores, grades, and attendance on average than the those left behind at the low-performing high schools.
Haimson also pointed to a report by “NY Lawyers for the Public Interest” that showed how the small schools discriminate against special ed students, “yet the conclusions of report after report, study after study, are denied by the administration.”
(http://www.advocatesforchildren.org/pubs/2005/ellsmallschools06.pdf)
A joint report by “The New York Immigration Coalition & Advocates for Children of New York” quoted a small schools administrator in the Bronx:
“We don’t have ELL students. They can apply, but we can't serve them. Eventually we will have services for them, but we just don’t have the people to do it right now. If the students are accepted, we end up transferring them. Now that we are in our third year, we have to accept [ELLs], but we are still trying to find a teacher for them.”
At a press conference, Joel Klein bragged about how the grad rates were even higher than first announced (57% vs 54%). The state claims the rate is 43%. Responding with hocus pocus figures he said something about trying to compare apples and oranges, one of his favorite expressions. He proudly pulled out charts comparing the even higher rates than the averages from the small schools that he had championed, comparing them to the dismal rates at the large comprehensive high schools.
Rather than try to fix the large schools deemed failing, they have been shut down in a painful spiral – squeezed by crowding small schools that are treated favorably into their buildings, forced to accept the most at risk kids, etc. For every kid helped by the small schools, who knows how many have suffered? When 4 schools replace 1 large one, there are reports that they are populated by totally different kids. Where did most of the kids from the large schools go?
When I raised questions that there were few or none of the kinds of high risk kids in the small schools that can drain the resources of even well-run schools, Klein claimed there was no difference and that they didn’t engage in “creaming” of the best students by the small schools, pointing to income and the number of level ones and twos. My instincts said there was something wrong. I know full well that even if you hold a lottery there is a significant advantage to recruiting kids whose parents are even aware of the lottery and get it together to apply. But not having proof other than my common sense based on experience with the realities, I could only hope that some day the real story would be exposed. Hopefully, the time has come.

The Greatest Contract Ever Sold
We went to see NY Times columnist Frank Rich and Columbia Provost Alan Brinkley (David Brinkley’s son) at CUNY recently. Rich’s book, “The Greatest Story Ever Sold,” about the unraveling of the Bush administration has opened up a window to the way the Iraq war was sold to the public and the shameful buying into it all by the press. We found eerie similarities to the way the Ed press in New York and nationally have bought into the BloomKlein story of reform in the NYC school system. As the Bush story has unraveled, the press has begun to try to wipe some of the egg off its face. As reported above, the BloomKlein fiction may be going through a similar unraveling.
Speaking of selling snake oil, a book should be written called “The Greatest Contract Ever Sold” about how the UFT leadership managed to sell the 2005 contract, the worst contract ever signed since it gave back so many of the gains over the last 40 years; a contract being compared unfavorably with the one the Indians signed with the Dutch — the UFT didn't even ask for the $24 in beads as a takeback.
Despite the sell job, 40% of the teachers voted NO. The new 2-year extension of the “GCES” current being voted on will not require as much effort, but the UFT leadership is not taking any chances and is sending “the suits” into the schools. These “suave” characters will actually end up getting some people to vote against the contract just based on their obnoxious attitude.
Remember the promises of a year ago? Coming soon – 55/25. The end to micromanagement? Teachers having the freedom to choose the schools they want to go to?
Ask the numerous teachers, many of them over 40, whose schools have been closed (which many of us suspect are often for bogus reasons designed to get rid of all the teachers, something the UFT has gone along with) and are now day-to-day subs. This can happen to any school that closes. Attacks on experienced teachers continue to go on as the DOE is trying to run a Peace Corps where it replaces and retrains teachers every few years. An article in “Fortune” talked about how Goldman Saks and JP Morgan are teaming up with Teach for America so that Ivy League grads can spend two years teaching and then go directly into high-paying jobs in finance.
Klein loves TFA because they provide a continual, expendable resource of cheap teachers. “Generally, the TFA teachers are much less excuse-bound and more entrepreneurial and creative," Klein said. Almost 8 percent of new teachers this year came from TFA.
TFA teachers who do stay will one day find themselves under the same attacks, as the DOE implements a corporate culture that drives people out as they age. The new 100G salary? Sounds great but what percentage of people who enter teaching will stay long enough to get it? As salaries climb, attempts to make people leave will rise with it.
The new contract offers a “voluntary” buyout to the people who cannot get jobs who have to work as day-to-day subs. They will probably put people in the DOE version of Abu Ghraib until they say “I give.” Or just maybe a simple transfer to somewhere as far away from their home as possible. Or make them take the “A” train. Look for the DOE to put out no-bid contracts for water-boarding equipment and electric shock therapy for each region.

Seymour Papert in a Coma

Anyone who has been involved in tech education for any length of time is aware of the impact Seymour Papert has had on education. When the first Apple computers arrived in my school around 1983, just about the only program it came with was LOGO, the computer language program where you got to program a turtle to move around the screen, a wonderful envirnmeent for teaching and learning. One of my favorite projects was having my computer classes use LOGO to write nursery rhymes. Seeing even 2nd graders putting Humpty Dumpty up on that wall and having him fall down and splatter as all the kings horses and all the king's men march on, was a delightful experience. Though LOGO is not used much in public schools in NYC, its successor is used in many private schools. Eventually, LOGO and LEGO came together and spurred robotics programs in so many schools. As I head off to a robotics event that is being put on by the Brooklyn Tech robotics team this morning for about 25 schools in Brooklyn, I can only wish Mr. Papert a speedy recovery.


Vietnam: U.S. Expert on Computer Teaching in Coma

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: December 8, 2006

Seymour Papert, a computer scientist internationally recognized as the leading expert on how technology can provide new ways to learn, was in a coma after he was hit by a motorbike in Hanoi. Mr. Papert, 78, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor emeritus, was among more than 100 experts from 30 countries who gathered in Hanoi this week for a conference on teaching mathematics with digital technology. He was an inventor of the Logo programming language and is an adviser to the One Laptop Per Child project to build a $100 laptop for the children of the developing world.

Ding, Dong

Michele Cahill, a top adviser to Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, has resigned and will return in January to the Carnegie Corporation of New York, where she worked before joining the Education Department in 2002. Ms. Cahill, as senior counselor for educational policy, was one of Mr. Klein’s most trusted aides and a driving force behind signature initiatives, including new programs for students most at risk of dropping out. NY Times

Old Kleinites never go away totally, but often find time to keep feeding at the trough as consultants. With stories coming out of St. Lous about A&M's role there, the recent NY Times article critical of the DOE (on Region 5's Supt. Cashin), and other revelations, is the Good Ship Lollipop taking on water?

Praha Go Bragh-ha

Prague (Praha in Czech) and Budapest have developed reputations as hot places to go. So I went. Since the late 80’s, Eastern Europe is in the midst of massive redevelopment. The idea is to get there and see a touch of old Europe as it was before the entire continent gets turned into a giant strip mall.... My favorite Czech expression: “Strc prst skrz krk.” Translation: “Stick your finger through your throat.”


Read about my recent trip to Prague at the LostWriters web site in the Wanderlust section. If you are over 30, bring your passport. While there, check out the weekly (Saturday) postings of Holly Hagen, one of my fiction writing group buddies, who is also the editor of the travel section.


Prague building after drinking a few tons of beer, the Czech national drink.

Education Notes - December, 2006

The print edition was distributed at the UFT Delegate Assembly on Dec. 6, 2006. A pdf is available for distribution to your schools by sending an email to norscot@aol.com

Where We Lie Down
Formerly titled “Where We Stand” (circa 1990) and “Where We Sit (circa 2000)
People opposed to the Unity Caucus machine have been branded as complainers and malcontents with no positive ideas. I find that funny since in the over 10 years education Notes has been around, we have put out numerous proposals, most either rejected outright or talked to death. With the end of the year coming, I though I would reprise just a few. Read more about where we lie down on the ednotesonline blog. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Fight Abusive Principals, Defend Members in the Schools Vigorously and Most Importantly, PROTECT CHAPTER LEADERS
Look at the results rather than the bullshit. What are the conditions in your school of your chapter? Is being chapter leader a fun job? Are people scared shitless?

I won’t go into all the details of our 10 year fight to take care of the core business of the UFT. When my principal threatened to dismantle my computer program as retaliation for my activities as chapter leader in the mid-90’s I brought resolutions to the DA calling for protection for chapter leaders. (This was in the days when Klein was more worried about Microsoft than lesson plans.) The Unity packed DA overwhelmingly said NO.

Here is an interchange I had with a blogger who urged ratification of the contract:
“We should ratify this deal. But we should be clear about what we are ratifying. The agreement is mediocre. We don’t lose anything major, nor do we gain much. The money almost keeps up with inflation. We don’t win back anything we lost in the last, awful contract. And there are a couple of provisions that make me nervous. Then why ratify? We are not strong enough, our union is not strong enough at this juncture to have done substantially better. We can use the time to strengthen ourselves. We must.”

I responded:
Why has the UFT leadership, which has been in control forever, had no ability to keep the union from being so weak? Given that fact, and assuming they will continue to be in power, what makes you think they have somehow come up with the magic formula to do what they have not been willing or able to do up to now? Is there a magic bullet? Or must we go back to the basic organizing that built the union in the early days?

If the answer is the latter, I claim that the current leadership is so satisfied and entrenched and sitting out of harm’s way that they have no reason to be hungry enough to do that gut level work. If they were ever threatened by a serious opposition [see note on the “responsible’ opposition below], something we are very far from seeing, that might do the trick. Which is why I claim that trying to build such a viable movement in the UFT will have the biggest impact on accomplishing what you want to see. In that light I can say that a NO vote would be such a sign as opposed to accepting that we are just too weak to fight. That attitude is so counter to strengthening the union. Can you imagine the conditions the organizers of the UFT faced when a relative few walked out on strike for the first time? That is the kind of toughness and spirit that is needed.

A perfect example took place at the UFT Exec Bd. meeting on Monday, Dec. 4. A teacher from Norman Thomas HS pleaded for relief from an abusive AP who had made so many people’s lives miserable. Randi said, “Do you want me to come,” which caused guffaws from those of us in the back who had watched the UFT allow this crap to go on. Chapter Leader and TJC member Nick Licari interrupted (calls of out of order came from the Unity faithful) that the UFT Manhattan Borough office had the case for a year and did nothing. Boro Rep Jerry Goldman defended their actions by saying they did not have enough information to file a grievance and the people at Norman Tomas could have appealed but didn’t. What a joke! Here is an AP running rampant over scads of teachers for a year and Randi wants to go there after the body is practically in the ground.

Randi promised 80 teachers at Lafayette HS sufffering under the famous Jolanta Rohloff an article in the NY Teacher. So far? Nada! Columns in the Wave and in Ed. Notes exposing Rohloff in the “Galleries Lafayette” articles prompted an email from Rohloff complaining about my articles. (NOTE: Some Unity Caucus Lafayette reps have said that Weingarten has really helped, but they are Unity, so take this with a grain of salt.)

At Sheepshead Bay HS the Leadership Academy principal is running rampant giving people U-ratings, yet District Rep. Charlie Turner smugly shows up only to tell people how great the new contract and yell at them for not standing up to her.

Turner and Goldman are indicative of how the union works. Blame the victims while these guys are safely ensconsed at UFT HQ (and getting all the raises the members get from the new contract without any of the risks.)

Randi Weingarten has been too busy worrying that John Stossel made her look bad to take care of core business. That demo at ABC should have been held at Norman Thomas, Lafayette and Sheepshead Bay high schools.

NOTE:
Charlie Turner, the Brooklyn HS District Rep and prototypical Unity goon, who has always refused to accept anything I hand out, came over and asked me to step outside to "talk." I refused. "Don't use my name without talking to me first," he threatened, calling me a scumbag. I called him a useless piece of shit. UPS can be the new catchall name for Unity goons.

Mayoral Control: UFT Will Stay the Course
Literally minutes after Randi Weingarten uttered the words she was in favor of this abomination in 2001, we opposed it. Our position has always been to set up a system that gives the most say to teachers in their schools. The leadership’s goal is a system where they have the most influence. These are NOT the same thing. Mayoral control where they control the mayor is their goal. But mayors do change.

Here’s the skinny. Randi supports it and will always support it no matter how many task forces she forms or what they come out with as a recommendation. Her problem is to make it look like she has reservations or is opposed. But that should be easy. Say one thing and do another.

Watch the UFT either be neutral, which amounts to support since it’s the only body capable of marshalling enough support to kill it. Judge actions by the final result: Mayoral control will still be intact with a few cosmetic changes in 2010. Bet the ranch. Check out the ICE leaflet on this issue and support the ICE resolution. Weingarten claims that ICE want to stop the members from discussing the issue. The members have spoken. Not sure? Just ask the people in your school.

Cut Class size through contract negotiations
UFT leaders always frame this issue in terms of class size reductions will come out of the salary package and come up with gimmicks. This argument is specious. Do health benefits come out of the salary package? Copy machines? Books, desks, supplies, etc.? Would the leadership argue kids should stand so we could get more money? How about toilet paper? BYOR - Bring Your own Roll and earn 50 cents more a week. It was good that at some point the union DID negotiate class size limits or there would be 80 in class. Check the success rate of the UFT policy on class size: the highest in the state, if not the nation.

New Action and Unity Seal the Deal
If you missed our piece last month (check the blog) on the arrangement being made between Unity and New Action to run a joint slate with cross-endorsed candidates in the UFT elections this spring, the deal has been sealed. New Action will get a bunch of at-large seats, guaranteeing their election, and 3 out of the 6 high school candidacies to challenge the ICE/TJC slate, which will now have a battle to maintain independent voices on the Exec. BD. The goal of Unity/New Action it to create the illusion of a “responsible” opposition, which translates into supporting Unity on every issue. Again, watch what they do, not what they say. Does anyone think that the old guard of unity Caucus that disliked New Action leadersfor numerous reasons are happy? The word “sycophants” about New Action leaders often gets whispered by Unity faithful. Stronger words have been used by the old New Action constituency which had fought Unity for so long.

Mayoral Control

The UFT leadership quickly cobbled together a resolution on mayoral control at the Dec. 4, 2006 Exec. Bd. meeting after the ICE resolution calling for the UFT to call for the end of mayoral control was emailed to Randi Weingarten by an ICE member asking for speaking time to present the motion at the Dec. 6 DA. That these people spend so much time worrying about what teeny tiny ICE is doing is beyond bizarre. And watching the machinations of Weingarten to try to paint ICE as being the ones not being democratic is truly a special treat - definitely better than some of those stale cookies at the meeting. Randi is trying to make it look like Ed Notes and ICE just came up with the idea of putting forth a resolution on mayoral control in respone to a Unity plan to create another task force - the usual method politicians use to stall an issue. In researching an article the Dec. paper edition of Ed. Notes I went back into the dusty -- cough, cough – archives and dug up some oldies but goodies. I had been writing about the negative impact of mayoral control on school systems around the nation in Ed. Notes in the monthly editions handed out at the Delegate Assembly since 2001. When Ed Notes expanded to a 16 page tabloid in the fall of 2002, the first edition (with a circulation of 12,000) had the following article on the front page.

September, 2002

Coming Soon to a School Near You: Mayoral Control

When UFT leader Randi Weingarten floated a proposal to give the mayor control of the school system in May 2001, Education Notes took strong exception, arguing that giving politicians control would only result in a system of education by the numbers in a corporate style system.

Our criticism caused a breach in our relationship to the UFT leadership that has not been healed to this day. Weingarten took exception to what she perceived was an accusation that she was selling us out. We did not go that far, but we did feel that she was in favor of recentralizing the school system, thus opting for short term gains (a quick contract) while sacrificing the long term interests of school workers, whose ability to control the conditions under which they work decrease significantly under centralized control.

Mayor Giuliani’s scornful rejection of that deal delayed our contract for more than a year. It was the union’s behind the scenes support for giving Mayor Bloomberg control that finally got the contract done. Did Weingarten sell out our educational interests for a pot of gold? The next few years will allow people to judge for themselves.

This month, we give our readers a break from our diatribes against centralized corporate style mayoral control and turn instead to surrogates.

We reprise the article George Schmidt, editor of Substance, Chicago’s independent educational newspaper, did for us in May (2002) which points to the lessons of Chicago over the last 7 years as a guidepost to the future of education in New York. A group of teachers had the pleasure of meeting George when he visited us this summer. (Note: This meeting with Schmidt was a precursor of the group that eventually formed ICE, which had gotten together primarily because of Weingarten's support for mayoral control.)

We include excerpts from an article on Chicago Teacher Union President Deborah Lynch. We also reprint Lynch’s campaign speech to the Chicago House of Delegates just before she was elected. This rousing speech talks about the impact of the corporate model.

Another Deborah (Meier) also comments on mayoral control in excerpts from an interview she gave the NY Times. Meier has been a legend as a progressive educator who seeks realistic long term solutions to problems and doesn’t just look to create the veneer of “let’s make things look like they’re okay” like the majority of “educators” do.

Howie Schwack, editor of Rockaway’s newspaper The Wave, gives us his surreal account of a meeting with City Council members and points out how politicians just don’t have a clue about education. Schwack’s account makes the future of education in New York look bleak. But then we know that already.

Deborah Meier on mayoral control
Deborah Meier has been a hero to those who wanted to see change in the NYC public school system. Meier seemed to have rational solutions to complex problems. As a teacher she ran open classrooms, started the small schools movement in NYC, and set up a progressive system at the Park East complex in Dist. 4. She finally gave up on the system and moved to Boston to set up a school. Now 71 she was the first public school teacher to win the “genius” MacArthur Foundation grant.

Excerpted from NY Times, 9/3/02, Jane Gross, author

"I can't imagine anything they can do that would make a substantial difference," she said, except bucking a nationwide trend of more and more standardized testing. "If the only thing you want is better test scores, it poisons the game."

Ms. Meier said that the current "mania for accountability," with rewards and punishments for students, teachers and administrators, was borrowed from the corporate world. "It's like Enron," she said, pointing to all the ways that educators can cook the books to make attendance, graduation rates and test scores appear better than they are. "When the goal is the numbers," she added, "it leads to distortion of the data. The connection to reality gets problematic."

What would she do? She would start with a small schools movement:

“Clustered in networks of half a dozen schools, teachers and principals could observe and critique each others' work, design accountability systems to suit their individual needs and systematically study what worked and what did not. It would take five years to arrive at effective measurements,” Ms. Meier said, “and probably a generation to make the small-school model and its less rigid accountability methods the norm.”

Her critics, she said, wanted "a faster, more guaranteed route," like the order to lift test scores annually. Her counter argument is that "being in too much of a hurry leads us to do things that are a waste of time" or to jump on the latest fads. Among them, in Ms. Meier's opinion, are putting city school systems under mayoral control, appointing chancellors who are not educators and moving district superintendents to a central location.

Ed Notes, September 2002

'THIS IS NOT A PENITENTIARY': A VIEW FROM PUBLIC SCHOOL

By JB McGeever

An English teacher at Jamaica High School in Queens describes what it's like to share the school with police officers.

City Limits WEEKLY: Week of: November 27, 2006 - Number: 563

The New York Police Department and Department of Education both declined City Limits' invitation to share their perspectives.

The campus of my public school building in New York City is a fortress these days. Gazing through the mesh caging of any stairway window, I can spot faculty deans, campus security (a branch of the NYPD with arresting powers), as well as regular NYPD uniformed officers patrolling the grounds like medieval sentries. As I move through the halls of this majestic, 70 year-old building, I’m forced to sidestep a quartet of firefighters in full regalia, escorted from the building by two police officers, 9 mm Glock handguns bouncing off their hips. The students are unfazed, just part of life in the big city, but imagine: New York’s Finest, Bravest, and Brightest, all right here in one high school – and no one’s quite sure why. Was there a fire in the building today? That’s really none of your business. Information will be doled out on a need-to-know basis. Oh, and welcome back to a brand new school year.

Lunchtime. I find my way into one of the faculty men’s rooms, a police officer’s cap resting on a windowsill, its owner inside one of the stalls, making and taking phone calls like the commissioner himself. In the library, where I go to grade papers, there’s yet another officer. I ignore him, he ignores me, two separate entities here for completely different reasons. I grade my quizzes. He makes his phone calls. Apparently that big sign on the door with the red slash across a cell phone no longer applies. I leave a bit early to beat the rush, and officer on the second floor sees me and bows into a wall, as if in prayer, only he calls the wall “sweetie,” so I assume he’s not speaking to his respective deity.

It’s not so much the constant cell phone use, the squinting, dirty looks as I enter a corridor, or the fact that no one notified the faculty of a police presence in the building. It’s those Glocks in their holsters, the “hand cannons” at their hips. It simply looks obscene in the halls outside my classroom. This is supposed to be a sanctuary. Any literature teacher in the city will tell you, a few well-placed props change the entire setting of a location. I wouldn’t dream of teaching a lesson on “Macbeth” from the backseat of a squad car. What in the world are these people doing with loaded weapons in our halls? It’s just no way for a kid to go to school.

Last semester I had an opportunity to experience what the students go through. While snapping photos of the building to display in the school’s literary magazine, I inadvertently stepped off campus. An NYPD van immediately rolled up and demanded identification. I didn’t have any. Then who was I? Terms like “pedophile” and “terrorist” were used as casually as one might order up, say, a box of doughnuts. Terms like “overkill” and “police state” were hurled back at them. The conversation went downhill from there.

Yet this is the way many of the city’s teenagers attend high school each day. Instead of using the auditorium for assemblies and school plays, it’s been turned into a weigh station for students to adjust their backpacks and redo their belts after removing them for the metal detectors twice a week. Maybe this type of indignity is worth the trouble at the airport or on your way to vacation in the islands, but before gym class? My first year in the building, the assistant principal of security would prove to the students how effective the scanners were by pressing one against the fillings in his teeth – definitely a yearbook moment, boys and girls.

You see, once a building has been labeled an “Impact School,” the police arrive. Once the police arrive, negative publicity ensues. Negative publicity results in a failure to attract good students, and low test scores are right around the corner. Low test scores simply mean that your school building is doomed. In order to avoid this nightmare, many schools fail to report the petty crimes in their buildings. My building, however, was recently praised for a policy of “zero tolerance,” wherein everything from cell phone theft to verbal harassment was reported in good faith. Nothing was swept under the proverbial rug, and now the place is surrounded. Catch 22, anyone?

The end of the day. My girlfriend, who also teaches in the building, likes to give me the day’s news. Since the matter has never been addressed by administration, all the faculty has to go on is hearsay, just ridiculous trench coat meetings in hallways outside of classrooms. Apparently, she tells me, police guns were pulled on two students today. “If I tell you to do something, you better do it,” was the cop’s explanation, which he related to her. Before that he bragged how, in a separate incident, a Muslim student attempted to enter the building using another student’s I.D. and the terrorism unit was called in. Then the officer asked my girlfriend out to dinner. “Well, did you feel a whole lot safer afterwards?” is all I have to say.

This fall, to pound the student body’s collective esteem further into the ground, a Daily News sports reporter covered one of our home football games. The resulting article made its way throughout the school, passed from hand to student hand until a tattered copy reached my desk. For some reason, the reporter’s article got personal. He ridiculed our field, mocked the students who showed up to watch, even jeered the parents who cooked the hot dogs. He questioned our school’s heart, never bothering to wonder if other factors for a lackluster season might be at play. Though, in the reporter’s quest to deride the school, he got our nickname incorrect. For the record, we are the Beavers, sir, the Fightin’ Beavers, and don’t you forget it.

All it takes is for one student to have a bad morning, to carry that burden to school with him and then to act out on it, something that occurs in countless variations throughout schools nationwide. Instead of a routine suspension and a call to Mom, Dad, or even Grandmama, with NYPD presence inside a school the end result could be a world of hurt that no one ever imagined.

On our way out of the building, we pass one of the flyers some of the students have taped to the walls in an effort to win back their school. It shows a graphic with a pair of young hands gripping steel bars. “This is not a penitentiary,” it says. “We are students, not inmates.” If tales of danger are truly what you seek, dear reader, I’m writing this essay during the first semester of my tenure year. Now that is truly frightening.


Ed Notes Note:
While some teachers in schools deemed "dangerous" welcome an influx of police, this article is so powerful Ed Notes is prepared to take the position that police do not belong in schools. So what is the choice? The UFT MUST demand that the schools be inundated with proper resources -- and influx of educators - teachers, social workers, guidance counselors - whatever it takes. Creating a police state is the easy way and the UFT often takes the easy way while making noises that they would like there to be an educational solution but doing nothing to rally people to the cause. When there was high crime, they didn't put teachers on the streets but inundated the streets with a police presence. Let's innundate these schools with educators to find long-term solutions.

Query on unscheduled parent meeting

An elementary chapter leader asks:

I want to know if a teacher has the right to leave an unscheduled meeting with a parent and an administrator when the parent is rude, offensive and very hostile and the administrator does nothing to mediate/intervene on the educator's behalf. Personally, I think anyone who feels that the atmosphere in a meeting is unsafe, physically or emotionally, ought to be able to remove themselves.

Any ideas?

Statistics Always Lie

November, 2006

Well, recent reports in the NY Post are indicationg that the stats ongrad rates haev been massaged just a bit. After attending a press conference on June 29, 2006, where Joel Klein announced to an astounded press corps that the city had underestimated the graduation rate, I wrote the following article for The Wave.

City Grad Rates Were In Error

When New York City schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced at a press conference on June 29th that the Department of Education had made an error in reporting graduation rates, a betting person would have wagered that a correction in the original DOE estimate of 53% for the class of 2005 would be significantly lower. When reported in February that was a 1% drop from the 2004 graduation class and had resulted in criticism of Klein and Mayor Bloomberg.

In recent weeks, the press has been reporting figures of 39%- 43% from Education Week, the leading national journal of education reporting, the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank often critical of Klein, and the New York State Education Department. During the mayoral campaign last year, Bloomberg’s opponent, Freddie Ferrer, claimed these rates were more in line with reality.

But instead of confirming these dismal figures, Klein reported that the February number had been too low and the actual graduation rate was 58%, the highest in 20 years and a 4% rise from 2004, one of the largest jumps in history. The errors were due programming errors.
As a result the accounting firm of Ernst & Young was retained at a cost of $68,000 to verify the numbers. Klein said the verification practice would continue in future years at roughly the same cost.

Klein also reported good news that the first group of small schools started under his stewardship four years ago had significantly higher graduation rates than large comprehensive high schools, though the numbers were small. When asked whether the high grad numbers n small schools were impacted by the fact that special education students had been excluded from these schools “so they schools could get on their feet,” resulting in the most difficult students being shoehorned into the larger schools, Klein responded that the demographics still showed high numbers of Level 1 and 2 (lowest reading levels) students in the small schools when they opened. He denied these schools engaged in what he termed as “creaming” in an attempt to exclude difficult students.

He glossed over the fact that that not all level 1 and 2 students are special ed, which requries a significantly higher level of support resources, which are often shorthchnaged in the large schools and may to some extent explain the difference in graduation rates.

Responding to reporters at times skeptical questions, Klein admitted that the citywide graduation numbers include high school equivalency (GED) and special education (IEP) diplomas, which he said cannot be considered equal to a traditional diploma. He estimated that excluding GED and IEP diplomas would lower the rate by about 3 percentage points, but pointed out they had always been included in the past, emphasizing he was comparing apples to apples. (Some of our sources who worked at high levels in special ed contend that IEP diplomas have not always been included). City graduation figures also exclude disabled students, which the state includes.

Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters, often a critic of Klein and of press coverage of educational issues, said in an email, “Most of the media took Klein’s claim with a grain of salt, except for the NY Times, which unaccountably swallowed DOE’s claim hook, line and sinker, without mentioning any of the recent and more reputable independent analyses.”
The article in the Times said "…there was no dispute over the overall graduation numbers, which independent monitors of the school system said was consistent with their own analysis of graduation and dropout trends."

Haimson continued, “There is no respected, independent organization or agency that either agrees with NYC’s method of calculating graduation rates – by counting GEDs as regular degrees and excluding special ed kids and thousands of students discharged from the system every year-- or their ridiculously inflated figure of 58%.”

Just the day before the press conference I submitted the following which appeared in the June 30, 2006 edition of The Wave.

Bloomberg used the big rise in 4th grade test scores last year to claim his Children Last – er – I mean First “reforms” were working splendidly. (Hordes of 3rd graders were enrolling in post-doctorate programs.) Education pundits disputed that, claiming that the test was clearly easier as all large urban areas in the state rose, most even higher that those of BloomKleindom, even though these school districts wouldn’t let a workshop model program get within 10 feet of their schools.

When the 5th grade reading scores of those former “successful” 4th graders from last year dropped drastically, no one was really surprised, except the gullible, or worse, the complacent NY Ed Press corps.

Then we find that BloomKlein’s claim of a 53-54% graduation rate [bumped to 57% in the fall of '06] was bogus (say it ain’t so Mikey and Joey). Recent studies have estimated the rate to be under 40%, a number which Freddie Ferrer (remember him) was claiming during the mayoral campaign and was charged with bumming all the BloomKlein cheerleaders out. (Zip, zoom, bow-wow – the only acceptable cheer for Children Last – er – First. Sorry, I keep getting confused.)

And the final straw for a bad few weeks for ol’ BloomKlein was the news that the small schools that had been trumpeted as a clear sign of SUCCESS had the slight advantage of not accepting too many special ed or difficult students, leaving these students to be shunted to the big high schools which were then being closed down because they are not as successful as the small schools. You really can’t make this stuff up. Many of us suspect the same scam is being pulled in some of the heralded charter schools. But that’s a story for another day.

When all is done and told (probably after BloomKlein are gone) the “children last” “reforms” will turn out to be the proverbial rearrangement of deck chairs.

The Galleries Lafayette

More on Jolanta Rohloff at Lafayette HS

You may have read ”The Galleries Lafayette,” in my Wave columns last spring on Jolanta Rohloff, the Leadership Academy trained principal of Lafayette HS. We’ve commented how these people are trained by pulling wings off butterflies to get them ready to torture teachers. The mainstream press has picked up a number of stories about Rohloff, the latest being Samuel Freedman in the Nov. 22 edition of the NY Times. After starting out talking about the Ministry of Fear, Freedman unfortunately drops the ball and never connects Rohloff’s dictatorial management style to the training at the Lead. Acad., giving Rohloff half the column to defend herself. The DOE press releases have been doing that, so what bother? I guess that’s “balanced” press for you.

The article naturally talks about how horrible the school was BR (Before Rohloff), the usual mantra to justify any action of BloomKlein no matter how horrendous. The mantra used by the corporate takeover types to degrade the public schools as an excuse for the hostile takeover, one of the clearest signs being the appointment of non-educators to run large school systems. (Think Scarsdale is hiring a CEO?)

Back to Rohloff. Stories have been floating out of Lafayette that there are a thousand less students and the school is way underserved. By manipulating the population, the DOE increases the chances of Rohloff being a success and justifying her actions in driving many teachers out of the school. In fact Rohloff showed up the first day with threats of a sea if U ratings. One person told me Rohloff’s first words were “Why do you want to be here?” followed by U-observations within the first 2 weeks of school. Rohloff has managed to unite teachers, students, parents and alumni against her. Maybe we should send her and the entire Leadership Academy to Iraq.

Leonie Haimson on city grad rates

http://www.classsizematters.org/

Bravo for Comptroller Thompson! He has had a very good week.

According to the NY Post, he has now written a letter to the Chancellor, pointing out how the consistent rise in the number of students discharged from our high schools calls into doubt the DOE claim of a rising graduation rate. For the class or 2005, the number of students discharged rose to an amazing 16,647 – according to the city’s own numbers.

It’s about time that public officials started speaking out about this; I have consistently pointed out the growth in the number of discharged students to everyone who would listen; for those who are interested, see my slide on this below (w/ data taken straight out of the Mayor’s management report).

Unfortunately, there has been an overly credulous attitude on the part of the media that city graduation rates have actually improved – most prominently as displayed in a NY Times article on June 30, entitled “Graduation Rate Improving, Schools Chancellor Says” in which the following phrase was included, in relation to the city’s claim of 58% graduation rate:” ...there was no dispute over the overall graduation numbers, which independent monitors of the school system said was consistent with their own analysis of graduation and dropout trends."

I’m not sure who these “independent monitors” might be. As I wrote to the Times at the time, asking for a correction, “To the contrary, three highly respected independent monitors, including the NY State Education Department, the Manhattan Institute, and Education Week have all reported graduation rates for NYC much lower than the 58% rate claimed by the NYC Department of Education. Just a few months ago, the New York State Education Department reported graduation rates in New York City of only 43.5% for the exact same cohort of students, a difference of more than 15%. ” (Contrary to their supposed official policy, I never even received a response from the Times.)

Unfortunately, the actual trend in the NYC graduation rate is impossible to determine, given the illegitimate method that the city continues to use; and the state’s improved method was instituted for the first time with the class of 2005.

Moreover, nowhere in the DOE graduation reports does the city even claim that all those students discharged from the system actually ever transferred to other regular high schools, as the below article implies; the discharge category also includes all students sent to alternative schools and GED programs, few if any who graduate with a high school diploma.

The actual disclaimer used by DOE in its graduation reports, most recently for the 16,647 students reported discharged from the 2001 cohort of entering HS students, is the following: “*Number of students discharged, primarily to other school systems, during the indicated school year.” http://www.nycboe.net/daa/reports/Class%20of%202005_Four-Year_Longitudinal_Report.pdf, p.4)

The city offers no data as to how many of these students did transfer to other “schools systems”, what kind of school systems, how many were sent to GED programs, and how many ended up as dropouts.

The State Education Department, which relies on the city’s report concerning how many of these students actually transfer to other regular high schools, whether in or out of the state, without even attempting to confirm this, still comes out with figures of only 43.5% for the city’s graduation rate, rather than the 58% figure that the city reports. Which would lead one to suspect that even the 43.5% estimate may be too high.

With the help of an intern, I have prepared tables w/ comparisons of graduation rates as calculated by the city, the state, the federal govt., and independent agencies – all of which show that the city’s figures significantly inflated. If anyone would like to see them, please let me know.

What’s even worse is that the incentives will become even stronger for principals to discharge even more low-performing students in the future, given that their schools will be primarily judged on test scores and attendance, ignoring all students who are “discharged” or sent elsewhere.

No Child - The Play

Nilaja Sun has received kudos for her one-woman performance in No Child, called “Compelling Theatre” in one review. But no matter how high your expectations upon entering the theater, you will emerge saying they weren’t high enough.

A review by theatergoer ancess1 on the NY Times theater page says, “She fills the stage with a whole school. The determined principal, the struggling and inept new teacher, the wise old janitor, the energetic and idealistic teaching artist, and especially the 5 or 6 vibrant, shy, defiant, unruly, belligerent, troubled, and ultimately triumphant students all come vividly alive in Ms. Sun's astonishing transformations.”

The audience, filled mostly with teachers, howled with delight throughout the performance. There were a few tears too.



I attended the performance of No Child at the Barrow Street Theater on Friday, Nov. 17 with thirty-two current and former NYC school teachers. Our group came together through the auspices of the Independent Community of Educators (ICE), a reform group in the UFT. It was a pleasure to revisit with some of the teachers and parents from PS 147, the school I had taught at for 27 years. The group included Mary (Acevedo) Torres, a parent from the school who had survived being in my 5th and 6th grade classes, graduating from the school in 1979. I also had the pleasure of teaching Mary’s three brothers. Jasmin, her 17-year-old daughter, a senior at Health Professionals HS joined Mary at the play.


Jasmin, Mary Hoffman, Mary Torres, Nilaja Sun


When you’re out of teaching for a while it is easy to forget the sense of what it was all about. My memory is fogged and I only seem to remember the bad things I did as a teacher. Spending some time reminiscing with Mary, who I never completely touch with, brought back some of the good things. Despite my protestations, she maintains I was a good teacher. BloomKlein would have me gone in 10 minutes but I’d like to think Mary knows best.

Do not walk. Do not run. Fly - as fast as you can and go see No Child before it flies off on tour.

You feel pretty old when your former student from 27 years ago shows up with her 17 year old daughter.



Check out the NY Times "A Night Out With Nilaja Sun."

More cheating - DUH!

Does high stakes testing lead to cheating? Gee, ya think? As small schools battle each other for the cream of the crop in students, they can supplement their results and prove that the BloomKlein small schools blitz has worked wonders by engaging in just a little bit of inflation. Think there's just a little bit of tension there?

The Daily News reported on Nov. 21, 2006: Bronx HS in Cheat Probe

"Authorities are investigating whether teachers at a Bronx high school cheated on crucial state exams by coaching students during the test and then inflating their scores, the Daily News has learned.

"City investigators launched a probe into the Millennium Art Academy in Castle Hill after a former teacher charged that essays on June's English exam had been improperly graded."

A teacher at Stevenson emailed this:

One of the new mini schools pushing Stevenson out of existence, Millenium High School, reported a 97.5 passing rate on the June Regents. A whistle blower - since fired - reported all sorts of irregularities and contacted the DOE and the State. When asked to turn in the Regents papers, the principal said they had been lost during the summer's construction and expansion.

It's my understanding a former Assistant Supt of Bronx High School conducted an investigation and found no eveidence of wrong-doing. I hear the State is still investigating.

The investigation of Millenium Art Academy was kept under deep cover until some teachers at Adlai Stevenson HS, the large, overcrowded school that where Millenium is housed, started spilling the beans. Do they resent that these schools are favored and Stevenson gets the scraps?

Millenium is one of 5 new schools now operating on the Stevenson Campus. Back in June, they gave their first English Regents.

A teacher there said they:

1. Coached students during the test

2. Gave inflated grades to everybody and wound up with an incredible 97.5 passing rate.

3. Had one person read all the tests, although standard practice calls for two readers for each paper - and a third when the first two are in wide disagreement.

This whistle blower was fired as she had frequently complained about the many irregularities she witnessed. She went to Klein and to Albany. The DEO said, after an investigation by David Kraun that there was no evidence of irregularities.

Keep in mind that the state wide passing average is about 77% - including the suburbs. At the specialized high schools, it's in the low nineties.

During the summer, there was a lot of construction as the small schools are expanding - at the expense of Stevenson, which did not admit freshman and is scheduled to phase out come June, 2009. When asked to produce the Regents papers for review - I believe by the state - they claimed the papers were lost during this construction.

There are rumors swelling about fake attendance numbers and Regents cheating by another school. Their principal did not return in September.

Although Stevenson was a big mess, we now have 5 more big messes, low morale and fear on the part of Stevnson teachers, and a lot of ill will between the schools.

John Elfrank-Dana On Saying “No”

John,
That has to be the most beautifully and persuasive piece I have read since the contract was announced.

It speaks to the issues without sounding bitter.

I now have something to hand out to my staff that does not negate the feelings of those who are for the contract while establishing a basis for those who want to vote NO, or are undecided.

Thank you.
Schoolgal
Comment on NYC Educator blog

What Lurks Beneath

I received a great response to my last 2 columns where I compared the NYCDOE to totalitarian regimes.

I have not had time to make a similar comparison to the UFT, but last year’s contract battle and the “selling” of the current contract by the UFT cannot fail to make the point, as the Unity Caucus machine did everything it could to shut down the ability of people opposed to the machine to communicate with teachers.

One of the hallmarks of totalitarian regimes (my leftist friends should not take this as an attack on the concept of socialism) is total control of the communications network. Unity Caucus does everything within its power to make sure literature critical of them does not get to people, including pulling materials from mailboxes. Another tactic is to attack all critics personally instead of answering their objections.

Jeff Kaufman and James Eterno from ICE (Independent Community of Educators) have been attacked as “fear mongerers” for raising questions about whether health care is part of a quid quo pro as they have found language changes in the contract that indicate such a possible change. The UFT has denied that there is any change. Some have also asked if there was a deal to support continued mayoral control, which the UFT has denied. (Just watch what they do, not what they say.) A press release from the Mayor’s office indicated that parts of the contract were being paid for by “internal savings” by the UFT. Since then this comment had disappeared and the UFT is silent on it. Can you be paying for part of this contract yourselves? Who knows? But allowing the debate to go on can only help give people more info, But not in this union.

Unity bloggers have posted attacks on me on the blogs: ”I wouldn't trust ednotes. he is a venomous retiree who still beleives (sic) he is an in-service member. As a retiree, apparently you just want us in-service teacher to vote down a good contract because you hate Randi and that is all.”

Someone responded: “Why can't a retired teacher put stuff in mailboxes? Isn't it good to hear views from all sides?”

Their frightening answer:
“When the DA approves something it is official union policy. When someone (ICE and Norm) put out something against official union policy, it seems to undermine the idea of democracy and the voice of over 1400 schools. As for teacher mailboxes, if you're retired, you shouldn't be putting anything, on any subject, in the mailboxes.”

(Apparently, RETIREE to Unity is a dirty word; unless they happen to be the over 50,000 retirees that vote in UFT elections and the 300 Unity retirees at the Delegate Assembly.)

Like I said: totalitarian tendencies at the DOE and the UFT.

I responded:

1. Do the masses of people working at the union, almost all making over 100 grand and some approaching 200 grand after the new raises go into effect, have to "live" under the contract? Are they "in-service?" Don't they get the same raises as the in-service teachers without any of the consequences? Don't they have a much greater incentive to sell the contract? Yet, they go all over putting stuff in mailboxes including Dist reps who put Unity material in the boxes. Of course that is ok since they are union officials.

2. The attacks on my right as a retiree to disseminate info as a service to ICE because the overwhelming majority of ICE people are in-service is designed to obscure the fact that ICE retirees afford the people critical of Unity a major opportunity to get info out to people. We are delivery people but Unity wants to use that as an obfuscation to keep the info out of people's hands. Next they'll tell me that it is wrong for me to go to the post office during the day to mail out flyers or I shouldn’t write a column critical of the contract.

Unity Caucus hounds are in effect saying that after Congress passes something the press and the opposition party should have no right to disseminate information opposing it. They certainly encouraged the Democrats to challenge Bush. But when it comes to challenging themselves they hold different views. I always thought democracy included the right of people not in the majority to disagree.

Just a short time ago, almost everyone supported the war in Iraq. If more voices of the minority had been heard then, results might have been different.

The press and public, and the UFT initially, supported the BloomKlein agenda but now as information leaks out there is a turning of the worm on mayoral control (except for the UFT as you will see in my column.) (Wasn’t Bloomberg elected by a majority? Then just shut up!)

Jumping on popular bandwagons is not a healthy thing and others and I insist on resisting the tide. On this contract, given the history of UFT leaders, it is absolutely necessary to raise issues. Already, based on our questions on the health issues, the UFT has been forced to put out more information in response. Whether we are proven right or wrong, we have provided a service.

Photo courtesy of: www.lewrockwell.com/www.lewrockwell.com/

What Lurks Beneath
by Norman Scott

There were cries of joy in Mudville as teachers heard about the wonderful new contract negotiated between Randi Weingarten and Mayor Bloomberg. Having wrung just about every concession they could out of teachers and realizing that one more giveback might lead to open revolt in the UFT, the Mayor and Weingarten decided to beat a hasty retreat and follow the pattern set by DC 37 to provide a raise that will just about cover the rise in cost of living. (The Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures inflation, has risen 5.2% in the first nine months of the year in the NYC metropolitan region.)

The contract, in effect an endorsement by the Mayor of Weingarten in the upcoming UFT elections this spring, will include a $750 bonus to be paid just as the election campaign kicks off this January. Rumors that the money will be included with a big picture of Weingarten in the election ballot envelope have not yet been confirmed.

Why would the Mayor and his trusty sidekick Robin - er - Joel Klein, want to see Weingarten’s position with her members strengthened? Haven’t they been fighting all these years? Well, if you believe that, I still have a couple of bridges available for sale.

With the city flush (in the fiscal year that ended in June, the city had a budget surplus of $3.5 billion after predicting at the start of the year that there would be a shortfall of over $7 billion) and the mayor hungry for support for institutionalizing control of the school system by mayors for the next 1000 years, Bloomberg seemed ripe for picking a few bucks out of his pocket.

Some teachers were saying that here was an opportunity to get more than the COLA and also get back a few of the enormous givebacks from the last contract. How many givebacks? If you’re involved in a school, you know. Just listing them makes me tired.

I met a teacher at an Election day workshop who said a large group of teachers came into school on the days before Labor Day wearing tee-shirts that said “Don’t blame me, I voted NO.”

“I hate the 37 minutes,” said a former teaching fellow who had come to teaching from the business world. A math teacher who has to teach language arts, during those times, she finds those minutes the most draining of the week and just can’t give another late day to doing the after school activities with kids that she did BSC (Before Sucky Contract).

Parents too were hoping for some relief as one commented, “It’s good they got a contract, as long as they got rid of that ridiculous 37 minutes.” So sorry.

Many parent groups who have been marginalized by the Mayor’s total control of the schools have been gearing up to oppose the renewal of the school governance law when it sunsets in 2009, hoping for the UFT to join in this effort. Sorry again. Won’t happen, except for some mouthings of support.

The NY Post proclaimed "No Secret Deal in Teacher Pact" proclaimed. “On the heels of a historic new contract with the city, the head of the teachers union yesterday dismissed speculation that the deal committed her to supporting extending mayoral control of the school system. Saying she has been bombarded with questions from members and outside observers about striking a ‘secret deal’ with Mayor Bloomberg, United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said there was no backroom pact. ‘There was no secret deal about anything,’ Weingarten said. ‘The mayor and I did not have a conversation about mayoral control.’"

Watch what the UFT does, not what it says. Actions are judged by outcomes and the outcome will be a renewal of mayoral control with some minor tinkering. The UFT will sit on the sidelines and use none of whatever pull it has to make changes in governance that would give teachers and parents a real say. Of course, the UFT will make noises about tinkering with the process and do whatever PR they think is necessary to mollify members who are outraged at the negative impact mayoral control of the schools has had on working conditions - the total refusal to deal with class size, the total and rigid control of what goes on in the classroom, the total lack of respect for the opinions and experience of teachers, etc. We might even see some bogus committees set up that will still allow principals to subvert them to their ends.

The UFT will make some noises about allying with parents who have been shut out of the process by BloomKlein. But the UFT will continue to turn its back on the corruption that is in many ways so much worse than anything that took place under the old system and will use as their argument "We don't want to go back to THAT! “ THAT" means community control. Yet, even under the old system, high schools were centrally mismanaged so much worse than many of the local districts. Would anyone argue that the high schools, and now, the rest of the system, are better managed today after the entire system was put through such an upheaval?

Rush to judgment?
My colleagues in the Independent Community of Educators (ICE) were amongst the few people at the negotiating committee, the Executive Board and the Delegate Assembly who voted NO, warning people to “Beware the Ides of November” as the tentative contract was rushed through all three of these bodies within 48 hours, allowing few delegates the time to consult with their colleagues in school or to take a hard look at the details of the contract or get answers to the numerous questions it raises.

People in the schools were immediately inundated by a blitzkrieg from the union raving about the wonders of the new contract. Suspicions were raised because the new contract wouldn’t go into effect for almost a year before the current contract expires. “What’s the rush?” was the question as some chapter leaders were saying they were confused. Don’t worry - the UFT leadership will explain it.

As ICE was pointing these things out, there was an hysterical outcry by the attack dogs from Weingarten’s Unity Caucus, accusing the ICE’ers of fear-mongering when ICE hinted there might be hidden health plan givebacks as a side deal since Bloomberg had proclaimed that pensions and health givebacks were the next line of attack against the unions.

Jeff Kaufman, a former lawyer and one of 3 ICE reps on the UFT Executive Board (Unity has 83), claimed that health issues had been pulled from the new contract and would be negotiated separately on a city-wide level without giving UFT members a vote, a charge denied by UFT leaders who claimed things had always been done that way. Kaufman discovered some interesting language changes in the new contract:

2002 Contract Section 5-Health Insurance and Welfare Fund
The Health Benefits Agreement, dated January 11, 2001, is deemed to be part of this Agreement. Pursuant to those Agreements, the parties have agreed to a series of payments to the Welfare Fund.

2005 Contract Section 5-Health Insurance and Welfare Fund
The Health Benefits Agreement, dated July 22, 2005, is deemed to be part of this Agreement. The side letter agreements, dated June 30, 2004 and July 13, 2005, are deemed to be part of this Agreement.

Kaufman wrote, “Now look at the change in language on health insurance from the new Agreement which has been split into two sections.”

2007 Agreement- Section 5 Welfare Funds
(This section describes Welfare Fund Improvements paid for according to the Department of Education with "UFT generated internal funding."
“What does UFT generated internal funding mean,” Kaufman asked?

2007 Agreement- Section 17 Continuation of Certain Health Benefits
"The parties acknowledge that collective bargaining regarding health benefits is within the purview of negotiations between the Municipal Labor Committee and the City. Cost-containment initiatives and program modifications in the City Health Benefits program shall be discussed with the Municipal Labor Committee."

The words “are deemed to be part of this Agreement” are no longer there.

No matter what the people opposed to the new contract manage to dig up, it is expected to pass overwhelmingly, with the opposition getting a much smaller vote than the 40% opposed to the contract a year ago. People have basically given up on the UFT’s ability to win back any of the concessions from the last contract. In the schools, there’s a sense that the union has little ability to protect them, so why not take the money and run? A minority will vote NO based on the perception that even if no concessions would be wrung from BloomKlein in the next few years, what is needed is a fighting, militant union that will prepare the ground for struggles against future mayors. The UFT holds out the carrot that they will do better with a mayor they help elect.

James Eterno, chapter leader from Jamaica HS and an Executive Board member (ICE) commented on a blog:

“The people who are waiting for Mayor Nirvana to lead us to the promised land are fooling themselves. Back when Koch was Mayor when I started, the UFT said that he called us part time employees so we can't work with him. Then we endorsed David Dinkins and a few years later we were wearing ‘Shame on City Hall’ shirts. We wouldn't endorse his re-election but when Rudy Giuliani was elected, Sandi Feldman said he was the toughest Mayor ever. Then it was Bloomberg and Klein and they were worse according to the UFT. It doesn't matter who the next Mayor is; the UFT will still be unable beat the pattern that DC 37 will set which will be less than inflation again probably. Three more years of this and nobody will remember how teachers used to have rights.”

From The Wave, published November 17, 2006

Ed Notes Query Response: Grieving U observations

As more responses come in, they will be added. If you have more info add it to the comments.

Original Query From a high school:

This may come as a surprise and tremendous shock, but in speaking with
teachers at two different high schools, one a small new school, one a
traditional large and phasing out school, teachers are very confused whether they can grieve a "U" observation on a lesson. Even one chapter chair was not clear.
Since it takes the form of a letter, some people think they cannot grieve,
not until the end of the yr if they get a U on final evaluation document.
I know someone here will clarify and I will spread the message.....thanks in advance...

Responses

Elem CL
Hi Norm, You know that I have had experience with this one--here goes:

An observation report is considered a letter for file, so technically you cannot grieve it, BUT make sure the teacher writes and attaches a response to the write up. This way if it is used for a U Rating at the end of the year, (which rarely get overturned), the teacher has some back up as to what actually happened with the lesson. If the teacher did not have a pre- or a post observation conference before and after the lesson, then they can grieve the report under article 8J. Article 8J is the article to look at for grievences about observations. But like I said before, they are considered letters for file, so unfortunately, we no longer have the right to grieve them unless there's a technically like the conferences before the lesson was executed.
Good luck.


MS CL
similar situation occurred in my school
here is what the union told me.

Probationers and U rated people should have pre-observation conference.
Grievances are not permitted on the content of the observed lesson, but rather the procedure of the observation. There is an article on this in a recent NY Teacher.


HS CL
Yes, an AP or Principal can rate a lesson as unsatisfactory. And thanks to the 2005 contract the observation report (aka "material in the file") can no longer be grieved. One can still appeal a U-rating, however, if it comes to that.

HS CL
Good question. I thought you cannot grieve the observation, unless perhaps a major reason for the U was something like lesson plan format. There’s also Article 24, Professional Conciliation when it’s a matter of differing judgment. Outside of that I am not sure off hand what else you can do.

Elem CL
I assume you can grieve a U rating during the year also. It would depend on informal and formal observation reports from the Principal. Maybe the teacher recieves an S rating on one report and a U rating on another report and so on. Also, the Principal would have to prove he/she gave you help and guidance to be a better teacher. E.g. send you to workshops on classroom managment or pair you with a mentor teacher.


Elem CL
my understanding is that while we cannot grieve letters placed in our files, we can attach a reply. Signing the letter simply means we received, not that we agree with it.

A "U" rating on an observation is usually followed up with a chance to have a second observation and to have the letter replaced with a satisfactory lesson observation. Teachers have the right to request a pre-observation, to have their plan looked over by the administrator who will do the observation. It's pretty unusual for an administration to refuse to give people a second chance at the observation.

New Action and Unity Caucus

A recent letter New Action/UFT sent out to its supporters made it perfectly clear: they will be running a slate in the UFT elections this coming spring. The letter confirmed that the alliance between New Action and Unity is tighter than ever. New Action has been praised as the “responsible opposition” by Randi Weingarten. The question can be asked: Can New Action truly be classified as an “opposition” when it is uncritical of the party it is supposedly opposing—Unity Caucus. In that case, exactly who will New Action be running against in the UFT elections this winter/spring?

New Action and democracy
The New Action letter states, “Weingarten stated that she was in basic agreement with our program with the exception of…union democracy.” But isn’t lack of democracy and the total dominance by one party, in turn dominated by one person, a fundamental cause of the problems the union is facing? Hasn’t the wide gulf between the membership and leadership led to Unity Caucus decisions that have brought us to the point where, in New Action’s own words, “all members of the UFT are at risk”?

New Action has claimed their alliance with Unity has benefited the members. They state, “…we continue to be an independent check and balance within our union, ” without demonstrating one meaningful check or balance that has benefited anyone in the schools.

“We believe the membership must be activated to establish a new union militancy,” New Action says. Yet they neglect to answer why the membership has not been activated by Unity Caucus or what happened to the “old” union militancy under the Weingarten/Unity leadership. It appears that New Action has declared a loss of faith in the rank and file as a means of forcing changes in the union, in essence choosing to become a lobbying organization with the leadership.

Do they really believe that their nudging at the top will change our union’s way of operating? If we need to build militancy in our union, shouldn’t they be organizing an effective organization at the grass roots level to challenge Unity’s disastrous policies, especially when it comes to democracy?

It is not New Action’s secret lobbying and cheerleading for the union leadership or their membership on various committees dominated by Unity (even some New Action members complain how they are ignored), but rather the open criticisms by ICE, TJC and independent union members that have moved Randi Weingarten to a more responsive and militant position on many issues.

In the 45 years Unity has run the union it has always taken away democracy, never granted more of it. Why would they do so now? New Action is no novice — no one should know better how undemocratically Unity operates than them. Their leader Michael Shulman himself had an election almost stolen from him in the 80’s after he won a high school VP position that led to him being tied up in courts for a almost a year. This was followed by a change in the rules in 1993 so no one opposed to Unity could ever win a VP position again.

With Unity Caucus opposed to democratizing our union, the only way to make the UFT more democratic is to force changes on the leadership by a grass roots organizing campaign. If New Action is in partnership with Unity, what recourse do they have other than begging for crumbs?

But it goes further than that. Why is New Action running against the rest of the opposition instead of running against Unity? By refusing to join ICE and TJC as part of the joint slate challenging Unity — they were invited to do so as far back as March, held off meeting with ICE for months, and did not respond with their refusal to join the slate until mid-September — New Action has made a choice to support Unity and to act as their stalking horse in winning back the 6 high school seats that New Action lost to ICE and TJC in the 2004 elections.

New Action negates its claim that it is for a more democratic union – by enforcing and supporting the tyranny of the massive, patronage-ridden, Unity machine.

Unity supported Mayoral control, Children First, schools rated based on high stakes tests, etc.
New Action’s recent letter stated: “Four years ago New Action warned of the dangers of imposing the ‘corporate model’ on our public system. Unfortunately it has come to pass…” Taking as its cue the fact that the Bloomberg/Klein axis of evil had placed the union under an attack on all fronts and was the major enemy, the letter states: “New Action/UFT, an opposition caucus, continues to work with President Weingarten in a bipartisan way to fight this unprecedented assault, to implement our caucus program and benefit the membership.”

Isn’t New Action obfuscating the crucial role Randi Weingarten and Unity Caucus played in allowing this “unprecedented assault” on the rights of UFT members? Weingarten had been a major cheerleader for Mayor Bloomberg’s takeover of the school system, had endorsed the appointment of Joel Klein as chancellor by failing to use the union’s power and influence and insist that an educator be put in charge of the school system, and had been an enthusiastic supporter of Klein’s radical (and eventually disastrous) restructuring of the school system. At the time Weingarten stated, “What Mike Bloomberg did today was declare war on the entrenched bureaucracy. The implementation is going to be tough. There are a lot of transition issues that have to be worked out. But it is breathtakingly possible.” (“Bloomberg and Klein Drop the Big One, While Weingarten Goes Along for the Ride”, Education Notes, Spring 2003 – currently appearing on www.ednotesonline.blogspot.com.) Since that time, many teachers have been scratching their heads in wonder at the lack of a rigorous public counterattack by the union leadership, evoking comments along the lines of “Weingarten seems to cower before BloomKlein and seems afraid of offending them.”

Did New Action abrogate its responsibility as an “opposition” caucus?
New Action states, “The Bloomberg/Klein/Bush assault [on unions] is constant and relentless” without referring to the role the UFT played, as if a union did not exist or was incapable of putting up any resistance to this assault — as if this attack took place in a vacuum. Shouldn’t New Action have used its influence to organize opposition to the policies of the leadership that left the union open to this onslaught? Did the largest and most influential opposition at that time contribute to the disaster befalling us by its refusal to organize teachers to pressure Unity to take a stronger stand? New Action was a vigorous supporter of the onerous “time for money” 2002 contract. Contrast this to the role New Action played in 1995 when it had been one of the leading forces in organizing the membership to turn down the infamous zero/zero contract in its first incarnation (it passed on the 2nd vote).

New Action “opposed” the 2005 contract but supports the 2006 extension
In Randi Weingarten’s announcement about the deal on the 2005 contract, she was able to state that the vote of the negotiating committee, which contained two members of New Action, was unanimous. Responding to subsequent dissension within New Action, there were a couple of leaflets criticizing the contract, but New Action did little to help organize opposition to the contract alongside ICE and TJC. New Action did not support the rallies outside the October DA or in front of the UFT HQ. Nor did they protest publicly when Unity pulled literature opposing the contract from teachers’ letter boxes, which violated one of the basic democratic rights of union members, a right which New Action had previously fought for.

Thus, the recent statement that “[We] felt the overall package was not in the best interests of the members and we recommended a no vote on the contract” is misleading. Weingarten was well aware of their lack of participation in rallying opposition to the contract. Their recent statement that “It is to President Weingarten’s credit that despite the fact that New Action opposed the contract, she continues to seek our counsel and accepts bipartisanship” underscores their total dependence on Weingarten’s god will. All New Action members on the current negotiating committee voted for the 2 year extension of a contract they supposedly opposed, with only the ICE and TJC members voting “NO.” (A leaflet handed out at the November Delegate Assembly called for a YES vote.)

New Action has placed its trust in Randi Weingarten, never making the connection for people in the rank and file that she is at the top of a massive Unity glacier that will never willingly reform the union while they endorse Weingarten’s actions that, despite her bogus talk about democracy and rank-and-file participation, demonstrate a “l’etat c’est moi (“I am the state”) attitude. In the process, New Action negates and ignores their own history of fighting and organizing against the Unity machine, while betraying the constituency that supported them during these struggles.

New Action has discovered its new constituency – a constituency of one — Randi Weingarten.

This article appeared in the November edition of Education Notes distributed at the Delegate Assembly. A PDF copy will be emailed to you or sent to you school for distribution of posting upon request.

The UFT and Mayoral Control - A Slam Dunk

"No Secret Deal in Teacher Pact" proclaimed the headline in the NY Post.

“On the heels of a historic new contract with the city, the head of the teachers union yesterday dismissed speculation that the deal committed her to supporting extending mayoral control of the school system. Saying she has been bombarded with questions from members and outside observers about striking a "secret deal" with Mayor Bloomberg, United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said there was no backroom pact. "There was no secret deal about anything," Weingarten said. "The mayor and I did not have a conversation about mayoral control."

Watch what the UFT does and not what it says. Actions are judged by outcomes and the outcome will be a renewal of mayoral control. The UFT will sit on the sidelines and use none of whatever pull it has to make changes in governance that would give teachers and parents a real say. Oh, of course, the UFT will make noises about tinkering with the process and do whatever PR they think is necessary to molify members who are outraged at the negative impact mayoral control of the schools has had on working conditions - the total refusal to deal with class size, the total and ridgid control of what goes on in the classroom, the total lack of respect for the opinions and experience of teachers, etc. We might even see some bogus committees set up that will still allow principals to subvert them to their ends.

The UFT will make some noises about allying with parents who have been shut out of the process by BloomKlein. But the UFT will continue to turn its back on the corruption that is in many ways so much worse than anything that took place under the old system and will use as their argument "We don't want to go back to THAT! "THAT" means community control.

Yet even under the old system, high schools were centrally mis-managed so much worse than many of the local districts. Would anyone argue that the high schools, and now, the rest of the system, are better managed today after the entire system was put through such an upheaval?

Years ago when Randi Weingarten announced UFT support for mayoral control, I warned about the impact in Education Notes, at Executuve Board meetings and at Delegate Assemblies. I had the benefit of information provided by George Schmidt who had seen the negatives of mayoral control under Mayor Daly and the Joel Klein of Chicago, Paul Valas.

Now Valas is in Philly as CEO of the school system.

Today's Inquirer has a story, "Vallas facing sharp criticism: Three members of the School Reform Commission hound the chief executive over the district's $73 million deficit."
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/education/15985129.htm

George sends us a follow-up.

11/11/06
Friends from New York:

I hope that someone will pick up on the story that's unfolding in Philadelphia, which inherited the Big Lie from Chicago in terms of mayoral control and the CEO stuff.

Last week, one top Philadelphia official said: "A year ago Paul Vallas was the toast of the town. Now he's toast." Philadelphia CEO Paul Vallas and his entire corrupt Chicago crew is facing a lot of investigation now that the ecomony has gone into bad times and Vallas doesn't have a blank check to bribe everyone (as he had here, when he -- along with our mayor -- invented the "CEO myth" for the right wing Democrats during the late 1990s).

Anyway, I hope someone can pick up on the daily breaking news about the corruption in Philadelphia and its impact on the union.

Part of that story is that Ted Kersch, of the PFT, had been one of the Vallas cheerleaders (like Randi in New York and the late Tom Reece here in Chicago) and consequently guilty of foisting executive rule on the schools. Now the PFT is taking huge hits (class size increases; double programs; layoffs) because of the corruption. And this is just the beginning.

If nothing else, I hope that this will begin to unravel the lies of "CEO" rule in public education, so that in a few years we can get back to the mopey kinds of democracy that actually work. The CEO myth should have been buried with Enron, World Com, Tyco, Adelphia, and the rest, but in education it got a breath of added life thanks to union leaders in Chicago, New York and Philadelphia who cut deals that were, then and now, unconscionable.

George Schmidt
Editor, Substance
http://www.substancenews.com/