Creating 5th Columns Inside Teacher Unions

The next wrinkle in the assault on teacher unions and public education will be to create a 5th Column* of teachers within unions that advocate for the end of tenure in exchange for higher pay. Job retention would be based on student performance on high stakes tests.

Though some are anonymous, I would bet that many of these teachers have connections to Teach for America and have no intentions of staying in the system for any length of time. They have also been inculcated with a bias against career teachers.

Thus, the wars begin. Right now the chief battleground is Washingon DC, where TFA alum Michelle Rhee, who formerly worked for Joel Klein in NYC, is leading the assault. Internal battles are also taking place in Denver.

But don't expect any of this to occur in the UFT because the leadership itself functions as a 5th column and there is no need to create a divisive group there since they have functioned in a collaborationist manner. Thus the opposition, who are branded as divisive by the leadership, has consisted of people calling for a stop to the givebacks.

I remember issuing a challenge to find NYC teachers who support the policies of BloomKlein. Where are the blogs of support while there are so many blogs out there that are critical? Many of these bloggers are career teachers who demonstrate in their blogs indications that they are supremely dedicated to their students and to teaching.

At one point a someone who left comments under various names like Socrates claimed to be a NYC teacher who defended the entire TFA/KIPP/BloomKlein package but was so clearly a phony, he was soon exposed. He even ran a blog briefly and left comments at many ed blogs. Many suspected he was being paid.

But why pay a phony teacher when you can find teachers without a career perspective to lead the fight for the corporate privatizers and anit-unionists within their own unions?

Not that there are not a number of new teacher blogs in NYC, many of them from TFA and Teaching Fellows. But they have not generally been political, but more directed at the teaching experience.

One particular example of this genre that we should expect to see a lot more of is D.C. Teacher Chic in Washington. The blog has been out there for 2 years and promised an insight into a classroom in a DC school. But there are precious few posts giving us these insights while the overwhelming majority of posts fall into a political area, mostly in support of the Michelle Rhee agenda. There are also a bunch of supporting blogs out there with lots of attacks on senior teachers for not being willing to go along with the program.

But the DC teachers union is so weak from previous scandals, it shouldn't take much to undermine it. If any of these teachers were to stay in teaching, which I believe they won't, it wouldn't be shocking to see an opposition come together to challenge the union leadership on the grounds it's not willing to give up hard won teacher rights.

Teacher unions seem outflanked and outspent by a sophisticated corporate attack. A basic lack of democratic input and leaderships out to serve themselves rather than the members leave them extremley vulnerable. The UFT, which has been considered the most powerful, is already basically a head without much of a body. As long as dues flow in to keep them in power, expect then to compromise and collaborate. Only the growth of a serious opposition movement can put a check on these trends. And if such a movement ever got started to be a serious threat, watch whoever is in charge of the DOE do whatever it could to aid and abet keeping Unity Caucus in control. But we're a long way from that.

Here are some articles and blog pieces worth checking out from DC and Denver where groups of teachers are calling on the union leadership to agree with the so-called "reforms" that would lead to the end of a real teacher movement.

Bait and Switch In DC

Teacher John Thompson writes at A. Russo's TWIE

What could be wrong with Michelle Rhee's proposed $70,000 per year teacher pay increase, in return for a year of probation? Lots, as it turns out. First off, the plan doesn't include a neutral party in the due process role, which could endanger teachers. Second, it would undercut contracts throughout the country. Last but not least, there's no guarantee the resources would last. And then what? Would Rhee perpetually pass the hat for permanent wage increases? Bonuses and salary increases for teachers have a strange way of drying up after a few years. --

John Thompson

Teachers to March on Union Offices

Washington Post, Aug 13

A group of D.C. public school teachers who want Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's salary proposal to come to a union vote say they will demonstrate outside of Washington Teachers' Union headquarters at 9 a.m. tomorrow. The protest is being promoted on the blog D.C. Teacher Chic, and several teachers have told The Washington Post of their plans to participate.

The teachers are upset by reports that union president George Parker is opposed to a provision of Rhee's plan that would require instructors to go on probation for a year and risk dismissal in order to remain in the top tier of proposed salaries and bonuses. The pay schedule could yield more than $100,000 annually for teachers with just five years of service.

Teachers also have the option under Rhee's system of taking less money and retaining tenure protections.

The union has been battling internally over Rhee's proposal, with some members initially upset that Parker would consider negotiating away seniority protections. They criticized the president for being too chummy with the chancellor. Tomorrow's protest will reflect those teachers who believe Rhee's proposals present an opportunity rather than a threat.

Holes in NEA’s Denver Doughnut Diplomacy

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association is in a contract dispute with the school district. It is gaining national attention because the major point of contention involves the future of the city’s unique performance pay program.

That’s the standard plot you’ll find in any story about the dispute. But there’s a subplot as well. It involves a group of teachers who think their own union is being obstructionist on the contract. They have set up a web site, and have 287 teacher signatures on a petition calling for a settlement.

Teacher Jessica Buckley says the union is reacting to the opposition. “I honestly felt very intimidated,” she told Rocky Mountain News reporter Nancy Mitchell. Mitchell explains that Buckley “cited the presence of the National Education Association and envelopes of cash given to schools as ‘incentives’ for teachers to pass out fliers explaining the union’s side of the dispute.”

Mike Antonucci's Intercepts.

*a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group to which it is expected to be loyal, such as a nation. - Wikipedia

Sol Stern misses the boat...

...in his Marshall Plan for reading in K-3 as he turns to a narrow view of reading methodology as a solution to whatever gap is being discussed. He talks about decoding and pushes his beloved "Success for All" program, a rigidly defined program that allows little flexibility for teachers.

I mentored Teaching Fellows who used this program and what it was really about was reducing class size by taking the entire school's resources - all out of classroom teachers - and for an hour an a half a day cutting the size of reading groups into more manageable chunks.

Reading doesn't just start with phonemic and phonic awareness but with speech - lots of it. And having stories read to kids an an early age.

The concept of balanced literacy which he is so critical of, actually has some sound theory behind it in addressing some of these issues but was implemented by Klein's non-educators in a destructive way. It also requires small, manageable classes, something Klein doesn't believe in.

Another factor was their rigidity - kids that did need phonics were denied it in the early years. I was in one class where one of the children was not able to function in the BL program and kept the teacher preoccupied while she was clearly needed to be circulating to make it work for the rest of the class. As her mentor I recommended she give him some kind of workbook so the other kids wouldn't lose out. "We're not allowed" she said. Okaaay!

I agree we should have a Marshall Plan for the schools. But covering only up to the 3rd grade (don't we see the enormous slippage between 4th and 8th grade scores) will be a drop in the bucket.

It is good to finally see Stern acknowledge the benefits of lower class size, which he used to pooh pooh. But if he thinks starting a reading program in kindergarten will do the trick, he is mistaken. By that time many kids need one to one assistance (Reading Recovery addresses some of this).

Open up schools for parents to bring their 2 year olds to be read to. Strengthen local libraries and run programs for very young children. Arrange for trips. It is the bigger bolder approach to the whole child before they enter school. Any Marshall Plan should attempt to diminish the language gap by pre-school.

The key ingredient in reading improvement is getting kids to enjoy reading. No easy task, especially when programs like Success for All and test prep often end up making the reading experience akin to taking a daily does of Castor oil.

NY Sun Speechless Over NY Times Editorial

A remarkable editorial appeared in the NY Sun criticizing an editorial in the NY Times. Leonie Haimson's reaction was like mine:

"I’m speechless as well; NY Sun criticizes the NY Times editorial board (read Brent Staples) for refusing to acknowledge the watering down of NY State testing standards, while pointing out the phenomenon in general."

And the editorial didn't even mention credit recovery where a student failing a course has to fog a mirror - faintly - to pass. One principal tells the teachers to consider "seat time" - when a student occupies a seat even without doing any work.

The true ed reform community in NYC has been beyond speechless at the shameless NY Times pandering to BloomKlein and Ed Notes has done a bunch of pieces pointing this out. The NY Sun has been a pleasant surprise as one of the few media sources to take a good hard look at Tweed, mostly by ace reporter Elizabeth Green and by columnist Andy Wolf. the Sun also had some independent analysis done on the data being spewed out by the State Ed Dept.

Here's the complete editorial where you can note how Bloomberg can't fathom that Green would ask him a question about these shenanigans. I wonder if Bloomberg pays people in his company for seat time.

Speechless
http://www.nysun.com/editorials/speechless/83870/


Forgive us, but what was the New York Times thinking when they wrote that editorial this week about No Child Left Behind? They wrote about every way states are making a mockery of the law's high standards — from watering down tests to quietly lowering the pass-rate — without once mentioning their home state of New York, which just happens to be Exhibit A in this entire debate.

It was New York that gave special accommodations to more fourth-graders taking the National Assessment of Educational Progress than any other state in the union — so many that some experts told our Elizabeth Green the state's results should be thrown out entirely. It was New York where a top adviser to the state Education Department argued the state should scour its test results for evidence of what the psychometricians call "score inflation," in which test scores rise regardless of whether true learning has occurred.

On top of that, it was New York where officials this year lowered the passing score on an Algebra exam required for graduation to just 30 points on an 87-point score. And it was also New York that high schools looking to varnish their statistical profiles were found to be quietly bidding farewell to teenagers who appeared likely to fail, without reporting their departures to the state. One potential outcome is that graduation rates could skyrocket and the dropout rate could disappear.

How these local developments could have escaped the attention of the Times is beyond us, especially considering that the newspaper from which we drew our final example in was theirs. Perhaps in their coverage of the No Child Left Behind law the mandarins of Eighth Avenue have fallen victim to the law of Not In My Backyard. They'd certainly be in good company.

Announcing the latest graduation rate results, Mayor Bloomberg could not for his life fathom why our reporter Elizabeth Green might inquire as to his opinion on the charge that graduation rates are inflated by schools trying to put on a good face.

"I'm sort of speechless," the mayor said. "Is there anything good enough to just write the story?" Well, it's the mayor who has traveled the country decrying lower academic standards for poor and minority children as a shameful practice we should immediately end. So the point is not to embarrass him or his chancellor or the Times. But the mayoral control of the schools is up for renewal in Albany, and one would think that both the mayor and the Times would want to be seizing the lead on the standards issue by setting an example here at home.

Tyranny of the test: One year as a Kaplan coach in the public schools

A fascinating article at Harper's by a former NYC teacher on the Kaplan and test prep scan. Long, but worth a read as the author, Jeremy Miller (who will probably never be asked to work for Kaplan again) spent serious time at a bunch of NYC schools, including Wadleigh, Truman, John F. Kennedy HS, and the George Washington HS campus.

Excerpts illustrating the true purpose of NCLB, which could have been designed (and probably was) so companies can gain maximum profit follow. Read the entire piece at Harper's.

...failing students become trapped in a foundering system, and the schools where students land en masse are left to carry out the test-heavy requirements of NCLB. For the New York schools “in need of improvement,” this means preparing students—many of whom are utterly lacking in basic academic skills and subject knowledge—to pass a battery of standardized exams.

Toward this end, it also means paying money to outside entities (often private companies such as Kaplan, the Princeton Review, and Newton Learning) up to $2,000 per student for courses focused not on improving content knowledge or on intensive educational counseling but on strategies for a “particular testing task.” (The total annual government expenditure per student in New York City is $15,000.) The failure of schools serving low-income students has been a windfall for the testing industry. Title I funds earmarked for test tutoring increased by 45 percent during the first four years of NCLB, from $1.75 billion in 2001 to $2.55 billion in 2005. With the ever growing stream of funding flowing through the nation’s schools, the number of supplemental-service providers nationwide has exploded. In New York City, the number of providers approved by the state’s department of education jumped from forty-seven in 2002–2003, the first full school year of NCLB, to 202 today.

The company’s revenues have jumped from $354 million in 2000 to more than $2 billion today, and it is now the most profitable subsidiary of its parent, The Washington Post Company, accounting for almost half of the conglomerate’s income. More telling are the margins: in 2003, Kaplan posted a loss of $11.7 million; in 2007, the company reported a $149 million profit.

Kaplan hired former N.Y.C. Chancellor of Education Harold Levy as an executive vice president and general counsel, and in 2006 relocated its headquarters for Kaplan K12, the division of the company that works in schools, from Midtown Manhattan to luxury offices downtown. According to Crain’s, the company made the move “to be closer to the New York City Department of Education.”

“Customization” and the educationally in vogue “differentiation” are two of Kaplan’s professed guiding principles. But Kaplan’s boilerplate assignment sheets and teaching materials hardly reflect the particulars of each of its customers.

I tell Ms. Semidey [who is supposed to be observed] I can teach the class tomorrow, since I’m scheduled to be in the school for two days. A little smile returns to her lips. “I’ve worked my ass off on this lesson,” she says. As I turn to leave, I am met by a small, perky woman. “Are you Jeremy?” she asks. It is the assistant principal, Ms. Campeas. She listens as I explain the conflict and the proposed resolution. “No,” she says. “This is Kaplan day. We will do the observation another day.” She calls Ms. Semidey over and firmly tells her the same. [So much for consideration for a teacher who has prepared for an observation.]

I find myself desperate. I can’t accept that I have not reached a single student in the program. Kaplan was being paid $1,200 per student (attending or not) for a job it knew from the outset it couldn’t complete. The money could have been used for an ESL or special- education teacher. Instead, I was receiving an entire day’s wage for each hour I sat in a nearly deserted classroom.

Kaplan coaches are taught to handle the strangeness of each new workplace by falling back on their highly scripted lessons and by quickly identifying school faculty as one of several possible archetypes; e.g., whether they are “trailblazers” within their schools or dreaded “saboteurs.”¹1. Kaplan’s handbook for coaches suggests that saboteurs be dealt with in a counterintuitive, Sun Tzu-esque way: by keeping them “on the inside where they can be watched rather than on the outside where they can cause trouble without it being detected until their effects are felt.”

I was cut off after I asked the teachers what the SAT was designed to do. It was a lame question, I admit, but the vehemence it unleashed surprised me. “It’s designed to keep people in their places,” a teacher shouted from the back of the room. “It serves the status quo.” There were approving snickers.

Yet as I came under attack at Truman, I found Kaplan’s training reflexively surging into my chest. We had been told in practice seminars to diffuse criticism by acknowledging complaints and then responding with an array of talking points intended to play on teachers’ anxiety over metrics and accountability. As a kind of disclaimer, we were to emphasize our transient and limited role in schools: We, Kaplan, could not ultimately be held accountable for whatever inadequate form of instruction was taking place at the school.

Bushra Rehman

I was hanging out at Teachers Unite Sally Lee's office yesterday and Sally introduced me to her friend Bushra Rehman, apparently a writer of some note. I had never heard of her, but why would I be familiar with that genre? Serendipity. I'll make sure to check her out. As someone who has found fiction writing to be extremely difficult, I am very impressed by successful writers. http://bushrarehman.com/.

Still Campaign '08

Maybe I was wrong. It is not campaign '12 but still campaign '08.

I am on the mailing list for some reason of a North Carolina Democratic party organization in which the entire newsletter focuses on atacking Obama and pushing Clinton with the hope that they can get enough delegates to switch votes in Denver.

Read this and see if you think Obama has a chance.

Do I think the Clinton machine has drummed up much of this? Hell yes. They never give up.

I posted links to one blog - with comments to give you a flavor at Norms Notes.

Fred over at Prea Prez also has some interesting thoughts.

Hillary Clinton is caught on video telling supporters she wouldn’t oppose her name being placed in nomination in Denver.

Her key adviser Howard Wolfson suggests that if the creepy (”my wife’s cancer was in remission”) philandering John Edwards had not been in the race in Iowa, Clinton would have won the nomination.

Billary appears to have bullied their way into speaking two nights at the convention. Will you be watching? I’m hoping the Cubbies are on at the same time.

Does Hillary Clinton still have dreams of grabbing the nomination? Or is she working to sabotage Obama’s campaign, hoping he loses so she can run in four years?

They Call me Mr. Fry - Teacher in LA at FringeNYC

http://theycallmemisterfry.com/Mister_Fry_.html


I ran into Jack Freiberger at Fringe Central the other day. Jack is a teacher from Los Angeles who has used his classroom experiences to do a one man show at the Fringe.

Shows still to come:
Sat. 8/16 3pm
Mon 8/18 3pm
Wed 8/20 9:15 pm
Fri 8/22 9:45 pm

Milagro Theater
107 Suffolk St.
F train to Delancey St.
J,M to Essex St.

Jack sent this email along:

Hi, it's Jack Freiberger, "Mr. Fry", the teacher with the play THEY CALL ME MISTER FRY. It was really great meeting you.

I really appreciate your support for my show. I've attached the NY press release that has the dates, times, and venue. If you can pass this out to the teachers, and actually get some to show up, I would be deeply grateful.

Also, please read this issue (August) of UFT New York Teacher. The "Back to School" section "Mr. Fry Teaches a Lesson". It's an article about the play.

Thanks again for your support and I look forward to hanging out with you after the show if you care to join my friends and me.

Jack

A few of us are going on Wed. Aug. 20, 9:15 pm and may hang out with Jack afterwards - if it's not past my bedtime. Let me know if you will join us.

You can order tickets online http://www.fringenyc.org/, or buy them at Fringe Central (201 Mulberry St.) or at the box office 15 minutes before the show.

Hill in '12 - Leo and Randi Attack Me

I've been writing on the issue of whether the Clinton/AFT/UFT machine really wants McCain to win so they can run Hill for Pres in '12 for quite a while. That the fall back position for the Clinton machine [of which the UFT/AFT machine is part and parcel] was to set up the campaign against McCain - in 2012. The NYT Maureen Dowd column on Aug. 13 nails them.

Now I know that many people feel Dowd has a thing about the Clintons, but she does deal with the facts of the protest and addresses the issue that the Clintons could stop the movement with a simple word. But they won't. Closure, ya know.

What we do know is that the actions by the Clinton gang will severely damage Obama to the point of no repair.

From the day the Clintons started to go downhill, we pointed to the quandary for UFT/AFT president Randi Weingarten. Insiders at 52 Broadway had been telling us for years that the major focus by Weingarten was to get Hillary elected and that the joint UFT/AFT presidency was to be used for that purpose. Thus the manipulation of the Hillary endorsement where it was done ass backwards - first the AFT, then NYSUT (NY State) and never the UFT where the members, who constitute the largest local in the nation and are the backbone of NYSUT and the AFT, were presented with a fait accompli. Thus, UFT Obama supporters were never given the opportunity to even discuss an endorsement. We wondered how Obama could be pulling 90% of the black vote nationwide while the Black members of Unity Caucus were silenced into supporting Hillary.

At the April Delegate Assembly, with Obama clearly about to clinch the nomination, ICE's Lisa North asked Randi the million dollar question, which I reported this way on May 9th:

At the April Delegate Assembly Weingarten was asked by ICE's Lisa North - will you be giving Obama the same level of support you are giving to Hillary, she smiled (sort of) and said, "We don't want McCain to win, do we?" The tone with which she answered gave something away. Then this was followed by a slap at Obama. We've also heard about chapter leader training has been used to slam Obama - a great way to get the word out to members without being on the public record.

After the election, the Clintons - and Weingarten - will spend the next few years mending fences.

And they will be aided by the entire AFT/UFT apparatus. Behind the scenes of course. That will be Weingarten's focus as AFT president.

Important to UFT members is how this plays out in the amount of real support Obama will get considering the UFT/AFT has such a big stake in Hillary.


Fred Klonsky ran the piece above at his Chicago-based blog, Prea Prez.

Then the plot thickens as UFT high school VP Leo Casey attacked both Klonsky and me, calling me sleazy and attacking me for not knowing what Randi said at a Unity Caucus meeting [Norman Scott knows this, and he also knows, because he makes it his business to know such things, that she reinforced her statement at the Unity Caucus meeting later that night] - Huh? Make sure to invite me next time.

Remarkably, Casey's attack was followed up with one by Randi Weingarten herself.

Before I get into those and Klonsky's response, a UFT member who was at the April Delegate Assembly meeting sent Klonsky this report backing up some of what I sensed but not all . I think that person got some of it right tbut missed the context of the deep roots that are committed to making Hillary president, by hook or crook.

Anonymous report sent to Klonsky:
At the Delegate Assembly an Obama supporter (and, by the rules of their game, not a member of our leadership’s caucus, they all support Clinton or remain silent) asked the “will we support the candidate even if it is someone other than Hillary” question, and Randi did answer clearly “yes.” And then she hedged. Not nearly as badly as Norm indicates, but it was a hedge. From memory, after her yes, she went on to mention how there hasn’t been outreach from the Obama campaign, that they’ve been hard to talk to. Didn’t make much sense. And, yeah, it sowed some doubt. But not much. It sounded much more like one last negative comment, one last unnecessary shot at Obama. But she was careful. The shot was at “the Obama campaign” rather than at him personally.

I have no doubt that the entire UFT phone-banking and canvassing machine will get to work behind Obama, but they might push a bit more on the local races, and not push quite as hard overall as they would have if Hillary had won.

Here is Klonsky's comment on the Casey/Weingarten's posts (which follow his comment.)

UFT’s Casey berates me. “Proud of support for Clinton.”
preaprez on May 11th, 2008

A few words in response to Casey and Weingarten. A couple of words about the two previous posts [by Casey and Weingarten].

First, I couldn’t be more pleased if the teacher union leadership will enthusiastically support Barack Obama in the upcoming historic battle with John McCain. As a member of the NEA, I wish my own union had done it already.

Frankly, I received the e-mail from UFT President Randi Weingarten with mixed reactions.

Mostly I’m happy about her assurance that her union will energetically support Obama when he is finally formally nominated or when Hillary drops out.

But, Weingarten’s claim that she never said anything negative about Obama seems to be parsing words.

Clinton’s campaign against Obama, particularly in recent weeks, has been repugnant, war-mongering and racist. What of Clinton’s threats to “obliterate” Iran? What of Clinton’s making use of racism in her warnings that Obama would be rejected by white working voters because he is black? Other Clinton supporters rejected this kind of talk.

What was my crime? I reprinted a post from a NY school’s activist (”slimy” according to the wordsmith, Casey) who has a blog that I read and sometimes agree with and sometimes don’t. I reprint a lot of postings and I will continue to do it, even if Leo Casey doesn’t like it. Interesting that he didn’t get so outraged when my anti-war essay was censored on the very site that printed his essay the day before mine was scheduled to run. In fact, not a peep from Casey.

No, Casey’s outrage is limited and targeted. Gerald Bracey writes an article on the Huffington Post about NCLB, and Casey says Bracey’s right-wing critics are justified in their outrage.

Someone from the union opposition speculates about what the AFT’s position might be in the aftermath of the Clinton collapse, given their leadership’s close ties to the Clinton operation, and Casey is outraged. In Leo Casey’s world you are not allowed to speculate about the political dealings of the union leadership, because as we all know, they are always open and above board. I reprint a portion of a post, and in Leo Casey’s world, civil debate is calling me “sleazy” and “shameful.”

But the candidate that they support runs a cheap-shot, Karl Rove-like campaign, and Casey’s outrage disappears.

Casey’s hysterical rant suggests that maybe there’s something to the speculation. A reasonable response would have been, “There’s nothing to it. The UFT will enthusiastically support the Democratic nominee in the race against McCain.” Because all the name-calling aside, that’s what I’m going to do.

By the way, I don’t know Norm Scott. Never met him. He’s never written to me. Never called me a name. Casey’s finger-pointing about how I joined Norm Scott in some exercise is not true. The only one who I join in exercising is Ulysses, my sweet Wheaten Terrier. And Ulysses is neither slimy, sleazy, divisive or blindly critical. On the contrary, he is blindly accepting of everyone. We need more like him.


[Note: The last time Casey attacked me [Konsky] it was because I said the UFT had supported Clinton. He said that the UFT didn’t support Clinton. Now he says he is proud of their support. You pick.]

Casey’s e-mail follows:

Leo Casey comment:
I am personally proud of the principled way in which the UFT and AFT has supported Clinton, sticking entirely to our view of the issues and Obama’s and Clinton’s positions on them.


This is one of the sleaziest and most outrageous seen in quite a while, and you do yourself absolutely no credit by reproducing it on your blog and giving it credence.
Every time the question of what we would do if Obama [or earlier, Edwards] won the Democratic nomination over Clinton has been posed, been completely clear and unequivocal: the differences among the Democratic candidates on the issues that are paramount for us — education, labor, human rights — pale next to their differences with the McCain, and we would actively support whomever won the nomination. When the question was posed at the April Delegate Assembly, at a time when Clinton’s candidacy looked like it was gaining momentum after Ohio, Texan and Pennsylvania, and Randi’s answer there was as clear as it could possibly be:
The person who asked the question, an Obama supporter, thanked her for her answer. Norman Scott knows this, and he also knows, because he makes it his business to know such things, that she reinforced her statement at the Unity Caucus meeting later that night, explicitly refuting misrepresentations of Obama’s positions on Israel — an issue of great concern to many of our members — and telling members that we would call upon them for November.
Since her words are so clear on this question, he is reduced to a slimy attempt at suggesting that she means something other than what she has actually said, again and again.
I am personally proud of the principled way in which the UFT and AFT has supported Clinton, sticking entirely to our view of the issues and Obama’s and Clinton’s positions on them. Regardless of what others have done, we have refused to go down any road other than that of the issues. Our endorsement, our focus on the issues and our ability to put people into the field in key battleground states has been one of the few important and consistent strengths of the Clinton campaign — a point which, I am sure, is not lost on an Obama campaign looking to November.
If you share with us the view that is potentially a realigning election that could put a progressive majority in command, than clearly the task is one of building the most powerful coalition possible for November, so that we can win the Presidency with strong majorities in Congress. A major component of that coalition will necessarily be teacher unions, as we are probably the most significant electoral force in the union movement. Norman Scott could care less about that goal of winning in November — as always, his purpose is to sow division. How shameful that you would join in him that exercise, and give credence to his outrageous misrepresentations.

Leo

And Randi follows with:

I agree with Leo. I have never said a negative word about Senator Obama. When asked at the April DA about this I was very emphatic about how we must unite the Democratic Party. Only someone who wants to be devisive or blindly critical, or simply lie, could have possibly misprepresented the content or tone of my remarks.

Randi

Anyone who was listening carefully caught the hesitation but there was also a quick recovery. But I always say, watch what Randi does, not what she says. Her actions in Denver will give us a clue as to whether my analysis has been correct.

OK Randi. Now is the time to put up or shut up. Roundly condemn the attempt to derail the Obama camppaign in Denver. As a super delegate, make a stand and just VOTE NO on roll call vote. And don't give us the democracy crap which we see very little of in the UFT.

Level Playing Fields Are Full of Weeds

Skoolboy over at Eduwonkette's place has an analytical post on education and socio-economic status, one of the issues addressed by the Broader/Bolder approach to ed reform. He starts off with:


skoolboy doesn’t know who was the first to say that the true measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members, but it’s an appealing proposition. All societies have children and adults who vary in their economic, social and cultural status within the society. In virtually every modern society, the more advantaged, as a group, do better than those with lower status, although individuals can rise or fall in relation to their peers. Today’s visit to the Olympics looks at the relationship between a child’s socioeconomic status and proficiency in math and science across countries.


His post made a connection to a fascinating program I saw on PBS yesterday (Wide Angle) on the rigid exam system in China and the pressures on students. When Aaron Brown questioned a defender of the system, she claimed that this was the closest to a level playing field where the child of a peasant has an equal chance with the child of a high government official. Brown was skeptical. "Well," she said, "naturally there are advantages and the peasant may have to be 10 times smarter than the official's child but if he/she is then the playing field is equal."

It's worth checking out just to see her justification at the end of the program. All rote learning all the time and you get weeded out before you reach high school Of course, China invented the examination system over a thousand years ago.

With the US schools, especially in urban poor areas, heading in the same direction, we hear the same claims of a level playing field from the Joel Klein/Al Sharpton Educational Equality Project. What they are really doing is picking off the 10 times smarter kids and pushing them into charter and other privatization situations while leaving the other kids behind in large, overcrowded, under serviced high schools.

Sort of like they weed them out in China in the 8th grade.

Level playing field indeed.

Rubber Room Suit Out - Kaufman Comments

Elizabeth Green writes about the tossing of the rubber room suit by a state judge in today's NY Sun. Jeff Kaufman provides more extensive background on the case by Teachers4Action and comments on the ICE blog. Head over and read Jeff's entire piece. Here are a few excerpts:

Back in January a group of rubber room teachers who called themselves “Teachers4Action” filed an action in Federal District Court against the City and the UFT (the UFT was not originally named but was later included as a necessary party which resulted in the loss of union representation for the charged teachers) in an effort to shut the rubber rooms down. Erin Einhorn of the Daily News reported that “The suit alleges that the rooms are part of a "scheme" to discriminate against experienced teachers and "reduce salaries by forcing teachers to quit or be fired.

Teachers4Action is to be congratulated for having the courage to bring these proceedings. They have clearly been instrumental in maintaining the pressure on the both the UFT and the DOE to help stop the abuse that rubber room teachers are subjected to every day.

While kudos go out to Elizabeth Green of the New York Sun for covering this story it is important to note that Justice Payne did not throw out the case because “there was no evidence that the arbitrators were biased against the teachers.”

While the judge made a side comment about the lack of evidence he never heard any evidence since the case was dismissed because Teachers4Action filed the wrong paper.

We hope they will continue to fight.

Campaign 2012: Pro-Clinton Group Runs Anti-Obama Ad

More on the Clinton undermining of Obama so McCain can win. Told ya so.
(And for anyone who doesn't think the Clintons aren't behind this no matter how much Hillary campaigns for Obama, there's a bridge to nowhere in Alaska I have to sell you.) And remind me of where Randi Weingarten and the UFT/AFT stands on this issue.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Newsmax

A group of Hillary Clinton supporters has bought an ad in an influential Washington, D.C. publication warning against turning the Democratic convention in Denver into what they call a “coronation” of Barack Obama.

The ad states: “If Democratic processes and principles are not respected, then the party will have a much bigger problem – a genuine revolt of more than 18 million voters.”

Another pro-Clinton group, 18 Million Voices, is organizing a march on that day in Denver “and nationwide to support Sen. Clinton and advocate for women’s rights worldwide,” according to its Web site.

Some of the Denver Group’s goals are at odds with those of the Democratic Party, The Hill newspaper reports. It wants an open convention, with Hillary’s name placed in nomination, as well as a genuine roll call vote with Clinton as a legitimate candidate instead of what it calls a “coronation” of Barack Obama.

Clinton backers in Denver will hold signs reading, “Denounce Nobama’s Coronation,” according to the Denver Post.

Read more

Thanks to FL

A Typical Retiree Day- A JOKE

Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days interesting. I have a great example.

The other day my wife and I went downtown and went shopping. We were in a shop for about 5 minutes. When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket.

We went up to him and said, "Come on man, how about giving a retiree a break?" He ignored us and continued writing the ticket.

So I called him a Nazi bastard and a pig. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires. So my wife called him a fascist shithead. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket.

This went on for about 20 minutes. The more we abused him, the more tickets he wrote. Personally, we didn't care. We came into town by subway.

We try to have a little fun each day now that I am retired. I feel it is important !

Thanks to CS

Warning: Some people took this seriously - especially a certain Unity Caucus cluck.
This is a joke. Anyone who would get into such a confrontation with a cop in a situation like this should be locked up -- for insanity.

Accountability?

Think it costs too much to reduce class size and provide other services to kids and parents in urban school systems? Create a phony one way accountability and standards movement to ignore and disparage small class size while putting the burden of accountability on teachers, schools, students and parents.

Susan Ohanian points to this article by William Greider in The Nation, Aug. 18, 2008:

Read this important article in the context of what the corporate politicos--Republicans and Democrats--have done to attack, demean, and deprofessionalize teachers--in the name of accountability.

Greider writes:

Talk about warped priorities! The government puts up $29 billion as a "sweetener" for JP Morgan but can only come up with $4 billion for Cleveland, Detroit and other urban ruins. Even the mortgage-relief bill is a tepid gesture. It basically asks, but does not compel, the bankers to act kindlier toward millions of defaulting families.

A generation of conservative propaganda, arguing that markets make wiser decisions than government, has been destroyed by these events. The interventions amount to socialism, American style, in which the government decides which private enterprises are "too big to fail." Trouble is, it was the government itself that created most of these mastodons--including the all-purpose banking conglomerates. The mega-banks arose in the 1990s, when a Democratic President and Republican Congress repealed the New Deal-era Glass-Steagall Act, which prevented commercial banks from blending their business with investment banking. That combination was the source of incestuous self-dealing and fraudulent stock valuations that led directly to the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed.

The central bank tipped its monetary policy hard in one direction--favoring capital over labor, creditors over debtors, finance over the real economy--and held it there for roughly twenty-five years. On one side, it targeted wages and restrained economic growth to make sure workers could not bargain for higher compensation in slack labor markets. On the other side, it stripped away or refused to enforce prudential regulations that restrained the excesses of banking and finance.

The only force capable of making a stand were the unions. Yet we have seen in our own UFT and AFT that they are part and parcel of this process. Have you heard one word from Randi Weingarten pointing to the disparity of the money spent for wars and bailouts compared to a true package of urban education reform? Thus, her calls for community schools without making the money connections, are just words.

But there is a long-time precedent in predecessor Al Shanker, who in 1975 used teacher pension funds to bail out the city as 15,000 teachers were laid off in a devastated the school system for over a decade with schools being left in disrepair with some closed and sold on the cheap (think they would be useful in today's overcrowded situation.) And the Tier 3 and 4 pension systems too.

Shanker followed up with Act II in the 80's when he allied with a very anti-labor business community to create the very phony accountability and standards movement that has led to today's devastation of urban public schools.

I expect capitalists in the business community to function the way they do. Just as I expect Joel Klein and Mike Bloomberg to go after teachers and the union. But the "cooperative" and "collaborative" role unions, in particular the AFT/UFT tough liberals, have played when they should have been the last line of resistance, is what has helped make all their dreams come true.

Shameless Plug:
Read Vera Pavone's and my New Politics review of Albert Shanker: Tough Liberal

Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon - Review by Vera Pavone and Norman Scott in New Politics

New Politics web site
The review has not been posted at the NP site yet but you can get it at the Indepent Community of Educators web site.
Get the pdf
http://www.ice-uft.org/ruthlessneocon.pdf

Exporting NYC's Education "Miracle": Buyer Beware!

"As class sizes remain maxed out, dynamic teachers continue to depart the system in droves, and student dropout rates remain static, reality does not match the Bloomberg-Klein rhetoric."

Dan Brown in the Huffington Post.

Why Didn't The UFT Demand An Independent Investigation For Alleged Teacher Misconduct...

... Asks Chaz's School Daze.

Chaz writes:

The UFT spin machine is at it again as they proclaim in their propaganda rag, The New York Teacher, about how they won a great victory for the "rubber room" teachers. I have already commented on this phony UFT victory here. However, what was wanted by all teachers was a truly independent investigation procedure. Presently, all investigations are done by SCI, OSI, and the principal. In all cases the investigators either work for and are paid by the DOE. They assume that the teacher is guilty and their job is to get enough evidence to embellish, pervert, or to change the information to substantiate the alleged misconduct.

At a June 2006 Executive Board meeting, ICE EB member Jeff Kaufman asked the UFT to do exactly what Chaz asks for by hiring paralegals and investigators to look at the evidence before DOE investigators and principals with vendettas begin their machinations.

Randi Weingarten ridiculed his proposal. Imagine the costs! What would those do to the patronage mill? How would they be able to spend millions of dollars sending 1000 Unity Caucus members on junkets to NYSUT and AFT conventions? If money were spent on giving teachers charged a chance at a fair shake how would Unity be able to create enough union jobs to satisfy the desire of Unity members to get out of their schools?

This was just one event at Executive Board meetings that so grated on Unity Caucus and led to the co-endorsement of New Action so they could replace the ICE/TJC reps.

When it comes to teachers charged, UFT policy is to let sleeping dogs lie. If the member makes no noise and goes like sheep to the slaugher, so be it. That was why we started bringing rubber room people to Ex. Bd meetings to make the wheel squeak.

Jeff wrote about the issue on the ICE blog in June '06:

When I was in the rubber room last year a member told me “his story” about an allegedly forged medical note. It appeared that after the teacher spoke up about the number of special ed student in his class (he worked in District 75) he was injured by an autistic student. He went to the doctor, who according to the eventual allegations, filled out a note which the teacher changed. The teacher claimed that the note was changed by the doctor. The doctor divulged the teacher’s medical records to DOE investigators which indicated that the note had a different (later) date than the records.

I asked the teacher what contact he had with the doctor and he told me he was specifically told not to talk to him. Did the NYSUT attorney send an investigator or make any attempt to contact the doctor or in any way investigate the matter?

Recently, a NYSUT attorney amazingly told me that there are no investigators and that the attorneys are overwhelmed with cases to provide the defense that our members need.

This might explain why, at a recent 3020a hearing I attended I was not subpoenaed nor had contact with the NYSUT attorney until the night before my testimony.

The only way we, as a Union, tolerate this misrepresentation of our members is because we don’t really care about these members. Just remember, however, the next rubber room reassignment might be for you!

Jeff's full post.

2012: A Presidential Odyssey

by David B.

John Merrow, NCLB - and Randi Too

Last week we posted on the clear bias of John Merrow who chaired a loaded on line conference on NCLB which included few if any people who taught for more than 10 minutes.

But AFT/UFT President Randi Weingarten was on the panel to defend teacher interests - ha, ha, ha - see one of her quotes below.

Susan Ohanian in her daily Outrages put up quotes from some of the participants.

________________________
Ohanian Comment:
I post a few snippets from this discussion on NCLB, narrated by PBS's John Merrow, Education Correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and President of Learning Matters Incorporated, as a warning. Should you wish to inflict more damage on your psyche, the url for the complete discussion is below.
http://newtalk.org/2008/08/do-we-need-a-basic-rewrite-of.php

Note how Merrow sets the tone: Any talk of abandoning No Child Left Behind is foolish. . . . So nobody who advocates ending NCLB is invited to the table. No grassroots activist was invited. "Activists" by definition in this atmosphere have ties to places like the Manhattan Institute, Hoover Institution, and the American Enterprise Institute. As I’ve been pointing out incessantly, those who come close to saying "dump NCLB" do so only as part of their strident calls for national standards and a national test.

But don't miss these [Merrow] gems:

NCLB as the vehicle for "beaming sunshine" down on public schools.

We as a nation have no aversion to national standards; we set them for everything from food to cars to toys. Why not national standards for all students in reading and math?

[L]et me throw into the mix Education Sector's finding–that we spend 15 cents of every $100 education dollars on NCLB testing. I know from conversations with the folks who make kitty litter, flea powder and other Hartz pet products that it spends at least 10 times that much testing its products.

I am struck by the wisdom of Achieve, Eli Broad [who funds Merrow] and others who talk about 'Common Standards,’ perhaps recognizing that 'national' and 'federal' are widely confused concepts and red flags to many Americans.

Count how many times panelists proclaim, "I agree with Checker/Chester [Finn].
______________________

Here is Randi's namby pamby quote:

Randi Weingarten, newly elected President American Federation of Teachers (AFT); a lawyer and active member of the Democratic National Committee

"John Merrow is right: Helping all kids achieve, particularly kids at risk, was always the main goal of federal education law. NCLB correctly set high standards, but it over-emphasized testing and sanctions at the expense of helping all kids achieve. . . . It's great that Achieve has been able to find a way to move toward national standards by working with the states and moving the consensus outwards, rather than starting at the top and moving down. Their work shows it's doable and I'd like to see more of it, more states, more subjects."

Does Weingarten want NCLB eliminated or modified? Where exactly does she stand? Which direction is the wind blowing? And there's too much testing? Randi made sure to jump into the photo when Bloomberg/Klein got the Broad prize, bragged about high test scores in the NYC test all the time system and agreed to a merit pay scheme based on test scores.

If anyone finds more fun Randi quotes at the site, send them along. I've had enough.

Susan O has a selection of comments from classroom teachers.

Lynn: I got through about 15 responses in this discussion before I got bored. Mainly because these folks keep saying the same thing in different ways. I have two questions for these participants: Have you ever taught in a K-12 public school classroom? If so, how long has it been since you were there? If any of these people have never had K-12 experience, I'm not particularly interested in what they have to say. The only real experts in a discussion like this are current and recently former teachers.

John Thompson: John [Merrow], I'm frustrated by your opening questions. I've always admired your work, but they sound like a "bait and switch." You started with an endorsement of NCLB, but shouldn't the question be about NCLB-type accountability. If I heard correctly, most panelists challenged national test-driven accountability. You said that we spend 15 cents of every $100 on testing, but isn't that the problem with NCLB I? Its another example of "Fire! Ready. Aim." Then when you started off today with the issue of National Standards, you started us off on the path that gave us NCLB. The next step is "better tools, curricula, and instruction stategies." No! That's not the only way!

Read Susan's full treatment http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_outrages.html?id=3492

And Then There's THIS

If you doubt the post below this on Hill in '12, check out the Huffington Post reports on Clinton campaign internal memos to be printed in Atlantic Monthly.

Leaked Clinton Camp Memos: Paint Obama As Foreign

A Shill for Hill in '12

To Hillaryites, the Democratic Convention is all about the 2012 presidency

With the death of Bernie Mac yesterday, the dearth in comedy is made up by Michelle Cottle, a senior editor at The New Republic, in today's NY Times. Her op ed urges the Democrats to enter Hillary Clinton's name for presidential nomination which would precipitate a roll-call that would prove embarrassing for Obama and result in damaging his already fragile campaign against John McCain.

The roll-call campaign caused an incredulous Matt Lauer took a few minutes from the Olympics the other day to say, "What are they doing?" Not many are willing to say it, but this is not about so-called respect or closure for Hillary's supporters. It is about running Hillary for president against John McCain or whoever in 2012. The more Obama is damaged, the better the chance for a hoped for 1972 McGovern like disaster, thus executing the prime directive – getting Hillary elected as president.

Even Cottle admits that,

"Nearly everyone in the Democratic Party seems to think that officially entering Hillary Clinton’s name into a roll-call vote for the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention would be a dangerous show of disunity.

It’s true that having America watch as some portion of Mrs. Clinton’s 1,640 pledged delegates thumb their noses at BarackObama would disrupt the party’s vision of a carefully scripted Denver love-in." [Emphasis mine]

Ya think?

Cottle needs to come up with some rationale to cover up the real intention.

But finding a constructive way for Mrs. Clinton’s seriously aggrieved loyalists to channel their anger and disappointment could wind up being the path of less destruction for Mr. Obama’s campaign. Plus, it’s the right thing to do.

OMG. The ole "right thing to do" ploy, words that have often been found missing from the vocabulary of the Clintons. Think maybe the right thing to do is to do everything possible to get Democrat elected?

But Cottle continues, "More than a few of Mrs. Clinton’s devotees, including plenty headed to Denver this month, are in need of catharsis and a bit of closure."

Ahh! the old C&C - Catharsis and Closure. So what if the venting leads to Bush 3. Well, actually, that is the point, isn't it?

More. "She was a victim of sexism, that the historic nature of her candidacy was callously dismissed in all the hullabaloo over the historic nature of Mr. Obama’s, and on and on and on. Some of these allegations ring truer than others."

Hey Michelle, exactly which allegations ring truer than others?

But many of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters believe them intensely enough to want to make trouble for Mr. Obama. Discouraging Mrs. Clinton’s name from being entered into a roll-call vote would give her legions yet one more opportunity to feel that their candidate had been snubbed. Giving them the chance to see their beloved candidate honored in a highly public forum could, just maybe, help release a little steam from the pressure cooker. Beyond that, there could be other, more direct benefits for Mr. Obama’s candidacy. A roll-call vote for Mrs. Clinton could help Mr. Obama look magnanimous instead of messianic.

Fair or not, the man has earned himself a reputation as arrogant.

Arrogant and messianic. What's worse? A&M or Catharsis and Closure?
Let's make sure to get in a shot at Obama that could have come right from the McCain campaign. Or Karl Rove.

Yes, we would all be reminded of how close the Democratic race for president was when, on the convention floor, delegation after delegation rose to cast its votes. (A few die-hards for Mrs. Clinton might even get mouthy.)

Bet they will. The more mouthy, the better to start the Hill in '12 campaign.

In February I wrote:

[Randi's] plan being to use a national forum [as AFT President] to help Hillary get elected. Ooops! Actually, if Obama is the candidate and loses to McCain, Hillary becomes very viable in 2012, so think long-term. Who do you think the Weingarten/Clinton forces will really be rooting for?) An Obama loss and AFT HQ becomes Hillary Central.

We've been chronicling the ties that bind the UFT/AFT to the Clintons. Is there any doubt that, Randi Weingarten, our leader who is a super delegate, will support this roll call move, though look for carefully parsed language (probably written by Hillary/Randi common advisor Howard Wolfson) that will enable Randi to wiggle out of the mess when the shit hits the fan and McCain wins.

But of course they will paint the reasons as not due to the actions of Clinton supporters but to Obama's failures as a candidate.


In March I posted this:

Is Clinton Strategy Designed to Undermine Obama Chances to Win?

If Obama gets the nomination and loses to McCain, Hillary gets to say "I told you so" and becomes the instant candidate for 2012. At the time, I read the piece to my wife, upon which she, basically a Hillary supporter at the time, said "WHY? HOW COULD THEY WANT McCAIN?" I responded because for the Clintons and their supporters it is about them, not the party. I told her we would be watching the true level of enthusiasm Randi Weingarten and the AFT/UFT have for Obama – oh, there will be lots of surface stuff, but with Randi's star so hitched to Hillary, an Obama win, leaving Hillary in Siberia, would not be part of the plan.

Maureen Dowd ("Hillary or Nobody") raised this same point in March:

Even some Clinton loyalists are wondering aloud if the win-at-all-costs strategy of Hillary and Bill — which continued Tuesday when Hillary tried to drag Rev. Wright back into the spotlight — is designed to rough up Obama so badly and leave the party so riven that Obama will lose in November to John McCain.

If McCain only served one term, Hillary would have one last shot. On Election Day in 2012, she’d be 65.

Why else would Hillary suggest that McCain would be a better commander in chief than Obama, and why else would Bill imply that Obama was less patriotic — and attended by more static — than McCain?

Why else would Phil Singer, a Hillary spokesman, say in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday that Obama was trying to disenfranchise the voters of Florida and Michigan. “When it comes to voting, Senator Obama has turned the audacity of hope into the audacity of nope,” he said, adding, “There’s a basic reality here, which is we could have avoided the entire George W. Bush presidency if we had counted votes in Florida.” So is Singer making the case that Obama is as anti-democratic as W. was when he snatched Florida from Al Gore?

Some top Democrats are increasingly worried that the Clintons’ divide-and-conquer strategy is nihilistic: Hillary or no democrat.

(Or, as one Democrat described it to ABC’s Jake Tapper: Hillary is going for “the Tonya Harding option” — if she can’t get the gold, kneecap her rival.)

I'm not the only one out there on this. The other day I came across this:

Hillary Plots, Eyes 2012 Bid

From Inside Cover
August 1, 2008

by Rick Pedraza

With hopes of being chosen as Barack Obama’s vice-presidential running mate dashed, Hillary Clinton has begun the process of carving out her political future.

The New York Post reports Clinton met earlier this week at a secret ladies-only dinner in Washington to discuss where she can go from here.

After learning she would address the Democratic National Convention on its second night – traditionally not the night the vice presidential nominee would speak – Clinton reportedly gathered her female posse together to discuss a possible White House run in 2012.

The entire piece is here.

Oh, and it you doubt the above and want to point to the Hillary/Obama unity event or the fact that Hillary will campaign for Obama, think:

...pay campaign debt so campaign '12 can begin.
...make it look like you really want Obama to win even though the Clinton campaign said time and again that he can't.

And if you believed this all along, then you wouldn't want to touch the VP with a 10 foot pole, so I see any of that talk as part of the distraction - see, he dissed us again?


Other sources:

Clinton Backers Plan Rules and Bylaws Protest

The Gothic Politics of Hillary Clinton

Hillary's $6.4 Million is a Wise Investment, for 2012

Huffington Post

This is not really a case, as some have suggested, of throwing good money after bad.
Hillary Clinton's decision to dump another $6.4 million into her lifeless campaign actually makes an odd and devious kind of sense. Because for her the end game is no longer November, it's 2012.

Next: Why I think Obama won't win. Not because of narcissism (oh, that was Edwards.) Or messianic tendencies. Or arrogance. Can you guess the reason? Triple DUH if you can't.

Postscript: I do not write this as an Obama supporter and am still 50-50 about voting 3rd party. But for true Democratic party people to support the roll call vote, it is shameful.

Green Dot’s Empty Promise

Read it here. I'm thinking that parent choice to the ed reform free marketeers only means they have a choice to leave if they no like. Otherwise they have no say in a dictatorial system. Contrast that to the suburbs where parents have no school choice but do elect school boards and vote on school budgets, in addition to a whole lot more input that the urban "free choice" dicatorships.

And then there's the UFT partnership with Green Dot.

I'll connect more (green) dots later.

Parking Permits for Teachers

Elizabeth Green reports in the NY Sun that NYC principals have to decide which teachers will be getting the precious parking permits, which have been drastically cut by Bloomberg.

Ed Notes News is reporting that these permits will be allocated to the teachers who get the best scores on standardized tests. Not only will classroom teachers be motivated to work harder, there is the added benefit that they will be able to use all of their time and energy for test prep, not for driving around looking for the very few legal spots that exist. And of course out of classroom teachers and those who teach non testing Grades PreK -2 will either have to take public transport or walk to work. And that will serve to reduce global warming.

The UFT hailed this as a great victory. "They wanted to eliminate all permits but we drew a line in the sand," said a spokesperson for the UFT. "We are forming a bi-partisan committee to spend the year studying whether to ask for the right to deduct the costs of parking tickets from taxes. Expect a report in June 2009."

Thanks to Jeff, Loretta and Gloria

Tenure Uncovered

Tenure is a much misunderstood concept and the fact that the concept is under attack as a major cause of the so-called achievement gap is part of the business community and the Educational Equality Project's focus on the teacher as the problem.

Historically, tenure came into existence before teacher unions existed as a way to protect educators and education from political interference. And to give people the right to a defense. It was not designed to protect the incompetent and there have always been tools available to administrators to remove teachers. The length of the process has been under attack even though much of that has been due to the other factors (like few hearing officers.) For some good history, read "Blackboard Unions: The Aft and the Nea, 1900-1980" by Marjorie Murphy.)


An excellent discussion on tenure occurred a few days ago at the NYC Public School Parent list serve, which also includes teachers. That teachers and parents were involved is of some interest.

Note the point in Leonie Haimson's comment where she compares teachers in public and private schools, where there is not tenure, yet there are poor teachers there too. Leonie should know as she has children in both.

Leonie also points to the fact that tenure exists all around the nation - yet it doesn't seem to be under attack in the suburbs. This exposes the fault line in the anti-tenure argument as part of the attack on teacher unions.

The discussion was sparked by an article in The Chief, which pointed to the big rise in the numbers denied from 66 in 2006/7 to 164 in 2007/8 and the numbers extended for probation from 115 in 06/07 to 246 in 07/08.

Principals Tighten the Reins on Tenure, Deny It to 164 Teachers

New Department of Education figures have revealed that the denial of Teacher tenure more than doubled compared to last year, as Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein continue to push for stricter evaluations of Teachers up for long-term job security.

Still, 93% received tenure from principals under BloomKlein. So how will they blame teachers in the future when their own principals gave them tenure?

I’ll start in the middle of the debate where Jeff Kaufman (ICE), who was a NYC policeman and a lawyer before becoming a teacher, responds to Leonie's comment with the crucial point that there is another agenda going on.

While I don’t disagree about concentrating on issues of smaller class size and reducing the impact on high stakes tests the issue of tenure, unfortunately, due to political considerations, needs to be periodically addressed. Having worked for a few City agencies I don’t understand how tenure is singled out for teachers as such a “hot button issue” except that there is another agenda going on.

I have not heard any cries of the ruination of our other City departments because the line workers, for the most part, have tenure. Police Officers, Firefighters, Sanitation Workers and hundreds of other titles have probationary terms and tenure (only teachers call it that) which require that poor performers be granted hearings so that city officials must prove that they lack the skills necessary to carry out the job. A police officer who makes no arrests, goes out sick all of the time, has no summonses and whose response time is totally inadequate can be dismissed, not because his commanding officer doesn’t like him, but because he doesn’t perform his job satisfactorily.

It is amazing to me, as a teacher and parent of school children, that principals and some parents can “tell” if a teacher is any good just by their reputation. I have been in schools where the principal does not observe teachers and bases his or her opinion about the teacher’s performance on walks through the hall and the chatter of other staff members.

Teachers shouldn’t have to defend tenure any more than other public employees. If there is a problem a supervisor should be taking affirmative steps to correct it. Unfortunately there is little accountability in this area.


Parent Eugene Falik:

I think that Jeff has hit the nail on the head.

It is not possible to have incompetent teachers in a school without incompetent or lazy administrators.

It reminds me of a meeting that the Far Rockaway postmaster had with members of the community. There were all manner of complaints, and comparisons of conditions in the Rockaways to the Five Towns (nearby area of Nassau), as well as other areas of the city. The postmaster explained that all of the employees sent to work for him were stupid and / or lazy. All of the good workers were sent elsewhere! Possible? Perhaps, but not likely. Most of those present blamed management.

And keep in mind, Mayor Bloomberg has said that we should judge him by the results in the schools. I believe that we should take him at his word. It certainly will not be a favorable judgment in my opinion.

Eugene Falik


The above comments were to some extent sparked by parent Ellen Bilofsky:

Despite my strong support for teachers' rights, dare I say that this might not be such a bad thing? I would say that for both my kids, poor teachers was the biggest problem in their high school years. Of course, it's a complex issue, and tenure is only a small part of it. At the end of the article, Randi mentions the support given to new teachers so that they can become excellent teachers. Being able to get rid of tenured teachers who are simply burnt out (we have examples of teachers who were literally almost comatose in the classroom) is a big issue. Shortages of teachers in certain subjects is a big part of the problem, since a teacher can't be dismissed if there is no one to replace him/her.

Ellen


Leonie Haimson’s response to Ellen’s comment.

A bunch of different issues are being debated and I think confused here:

1- I believe that too few NYC teachers are denied tenure, when you look at the statistics. Why that is, I have no idea; whether the problem is lazy principals or the system of tenure itself.

2- Once teachers have tenure, it is very difficult to get rid of them, even for poor performance. I have heard that there are ways to “counsel” them out of the profession but don’t know how often that is done. Yet there are good reasons for giving tenure.

3- For one thing, teacher tenure exists in most if not all districts throughout the country; eliminating tenure in NYC alone would not only be highly unrealistic; it would further disadvantage NYC schools, by giving a powerful disincentive for anyone who would like to teach here.

4- I also imagine that many principals would unfairly base the decision to eliminate a teacher on low test scores or even retaliate against teachers for personal reasons – after looking at the situation with the rubber room, etc.

5- NYC principals now have additional incentives to get rid of experienced teachers any way they can, and if there was no tenure, would be firing them left and right, as they have to pay for their higher salaries out of the schools’ discretionary budget. This is a perverse incentive that Tweed has built into their “fair funding system” which is highly destructive.

6- I have had children in public schools and in private schools; the quality of teaching has varied just as much in private schools, where there is no tenure. In fact, some of my daughter’s worst teachers were at her private school. What was far superior were not her teachers per se, but the smaller classes, arts programs and extra-curriculars, facilities, and the underlying attitude that all students should get maximum help and be exposed to as many activities as possible, in order to reach their highest potential in all areas.

7- If we really want to improve teacher quality and effectiveness in NYC, the best way is not to get rid of the tenure system, but to support all teachers and kids so that they can be more successful, by reducing class size, and also put less emphasis on test scores and more emphasis on non- academic areas and activities like the arts.

8- Smaller classes and a smaller working load will also likely diminish teacher attrition, which is extremely high in NYC and results in a far less experienced teaching force, which also means a less effective one, compared to other school districts throughout the state.

9- I believe but cannot prove that class size reduction would also diminish teacher “burn out.” How would you feel if you had year after year of 150 students or more, that you could only get to know a few of them, and reach so few?

10- This is true even at elite public schools like Stuy. If you’d like more info on this, read Frank McCourt’s book about teaching at Stuy, in which he talked about wanting to toss all his students’ assignments into a trash bin. Here is an excerpt from Teaching Man:

“If you asked all the students in your five classes to write 350 words each then you had 175 multiplied by 350 and that was 43, 750 words you had to read, correct, evaluate and grade on evenings and weekends. That’s if you were wise enough to give them only one assignment per week. You had to correct misspellings, faulty grammar, poor structure, transitions, sloppiness in general. You had to make suggestions on content and write a general comment explaining your grade. …If you gave each paper a bare five minutes you’d spend, on this one set of papers, 14 hours and 35 minutes. That would amount to more than two teaching days, and the end of the weekend…that’s the life of the HS English teacher.”

It’s no wonder he retired early. And he was thought of as one of the best teachers there!

Leonie Haimson