Videos: FairTest Honors Diane Ravitch with the Deborah W. Meier Hero in Education Award, June 7, 2012

 Ravitch and Meier and Monty Neill plus Weingarten and Mulgrew in the same space, Plus lots of super attendees. So far the ed social event of the season for me.

Love was in the air to such an extent at this event, I even gave Randi Weingarten a hug. And smiled at Mulgrew. After all, being in the same space with Debbie Meier and Diane Ravitch is a very special occasion, especially as it was a fundraiser for a worthy organization. You know I just found buried in my archives a book by Debbie that I was reading around 1971 when I gave up my dream of an open classroom in frustration. I have followed her career since then but only got to meet her 5 years ago.

FAIR TEST has been leading the battle against high stakes tests for a quarter of a century and  its director Monty Neill has been a major voice in the struggle, which if you have been following this blog you know has been heating up (Police Estimate 400 at Pearson Field Test Protest). It was the best $75 I've spent in a long time.

It was just a few short hours before we found out Walker had won in Wisconsin. And though I think that big labor bears part of the responsibility, the evening of good feeling transcended it all. Feeling a great deal of labor solidarity I had a brief but nice chat with Randi.




The entire video is worth an hour of your time and you can watch it at https://vimeo.com/43587373.

I also cut it into 4 chunks for those short on time.

I'm embedding this 19 minutes piece when Deb and Diane did a version of their Edweek (Bridging Differences) blog to end the evening. Just priceless stuff.

Meier and Ravitch in Conversation

https://vimeo.com/43759101

FairTest Award - Meier and Ravitch in Conversation from Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.

Here are other segments:

Deborah Meier Introduces Diane Ravitch
https://vimeo.com/43747985
Diane Ravitch Acceptance Speech
https://vimeo.com/43748488
And in this segment I collated all the other speakers:
Michael Mulgrew, Ann Cook, Monty Neill, Randi Weingarten
https://vimeo.com/43759471

The battle against high stakes tests has been in the forefront of Ed Notes from way back to our print publishing beginnings in 1996 when I was still working at a school that had been led since 1979 by a test/data driven principal (yes, even in those days) and I saw first hand what that did to deform education as the ability of teachers to control what they taught was being taken out of their hands. Thus, the issue was a key when ICE, followed by GEM were formed. The GEM committee, Change the Stakes, which began as a teacher dominated group has shifted into much of a parent/teacher group, with the sensibilities of both points of view making it stronger. Of course many teachers are also parents.

Also, on June 7, the afternoon of the Pearson rally, the education committee of MORE, the new caucus in town, held a great session on chapters 8 and 9 of Ravitch's book, with a depth of analysis that delved into what Ravitch left out and what she nailed with an intellectual rigor I haven't experienced in a while. In the room were some new teachers and some veteran ICE people, along with some NYCORE and GEM. Quite a mix -- the next meeting is June 21 (which I can't attend because we are having a party in honor of my dad where we will serve samples all of his favorite foods -- and have a barf bag ready just in case).

One major group we have to convince to get involved are the very people we work with. Organized, teachers can fight back against this testing mania and while the UFT/AFT make noises, they do nothing at the school level to get some pushback --- like how about getting a movement going to boycott some of the crap teachers have to do that has little relation to the children -- the waste of time monitoring crap?

Proud Principal Crows About His AP After Big PSAL Baseball WIn

I wanted to share this wonderful email from PS 257 Principal Brian De Vale after his AP, Melvin Martinez, had coached the local high school, Grand School Campus, to a PSAL Class A baseball championship. Here's the story in the NY Post.

I know them both for many years and here's the best to them and have fun in the Puerto Rico Day Parade tomorrow.


 =======
Brian De Vale

Please take a moment to read this article from today's NY Post, share with friends and congratulate our brother Melvin Martinez as sometimes it seems we can't get a bit of Good News in this business.

The story is more than a story about baseball -it a tribute to the love of family and community.  My Asst. Principal, Melvin Martinez, embodies  my belief in Community Schools.  He is a product of  District 14 where he continues to live, work and he has his two sons enrolled with us at PS 257.

His parents emigrated from Puerto Rico and raised 4 fine sons in Williamsburg long before it became the "oh-so-chic" place it is considered today.   His father spent 37 years as a teacher at a local day care where he influenced the lives of countless children and their families.  Two of his brothers (Edwin and Steve) continue the family tradition as both educators and sports coaches here in  District 14. Another brother is a law enforcement officer in Florida. The Martinez Family  runs a Saturday Sports Academy at 257 in the winter FOR FREE and Melvin has been  the Varsity Baseball Coach at our local High School Grand Street Campus for the past many years. I have witnessed him on multiple occasions counseling kids on his cell phone ordering them to stay in school while living in places as far away, and as foreign to them, as rural Texas. They are there attending College on Scholarships he helped them to win, on terms he helped negotiate.  He has also groomed several students and worked with Major League Baseball scouts to score major league contracts for his players(Dellin Betances NY Yankee, who still attends and participates in our school's Special Olympics- which were founded by Melvin's brother Steve ).   Many of his players are Dominican immigrants (ELL's ) and/or the first in their families to apply to college.  He not only wins games, but he also demands high grades, gentlemanly behavior and good sportsmanship.

The timing of this victory is awesome!!!  The P.S. 257 Marching Band was invited to perform tomorrow at the National Puerto Rican Day Parade. This band was born out of Melvin's idea to create a band as an additional way for kids to earn college scholarships-through music. He noticed years ago that at every college sports event there were always bands playing - and many of the students were attending college for free. When we were lucky enough to become a Magnet School and receive additional funding our band effort went into overdrive.  Now he will see the band he created perform at an event he truly loves, the day after becoming the BEST H.S. BASEBALL TEAM IN NYC!!! I know Melvin will be dancing his way up 5th Avenue tomorrow with us as a PROUD Puerto Rican son, husband, father, AP  and coach, screaming at the top of his lungs as he does every morning when he walks into the Main Office:

Dios te bendiga!!! Amen, Amen, Amen!!!!! Y Que viva Puerto Rico!!!!

So wave to us tomorrow if you see us on TV, as we crown Melvin our District's own Grand Marshall:
We love you "Uncle Melski"  CONGRATULATIONS ON ANOTHER JOB WELL DONE!

Brian and the Entire District #14 Family

=========

The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

News: Chicago Teachers Vote 90% Pro-Strike, Wisconsin and Car Talk

Chicago teachers have shown their solidarity in massive numbers. More than 90 percent of teachers have given the OK for a work stoppage, multiple sources told NBC Chicago. That number is well above the 75 percent needed, by law, to authorize a strike.

How did we get from hundreds of thousands in the streets of Madison, Wisconsin demanding union rights for everybody and fundamental economic justice for all, to a desultory set of Democratic campaigns for the candidates who, as they say, sucked the least, and ended up losing...[Labor leaders] turned a nascent movement into a series of electoral campaigns, first against a handful of state senators in 2011 and then the statewide recall campaign that ended in defeat this week. They turned the movement into a campaign, and then managed to lose the campaign.

Fast and furious, the news is coming in.

MORE News

First an article on why Walker won (blame Labor) circulating on the MORE-Discussion listserve (you can join by sending an email to more@morecaucusnyc.org). Or better yet, come to the MORE Happy Hour next Saturday from 5-7PM.)

I believe this article best sums up our agenda, how labor leadership has failed and the right/wrong direction for labor movements. This is must read for MORE members [and everyone else].

Labor is taking a beating, but don't only blame the Koch brothers. Take a good look in the mirror with the UFT/AFT as big a culprit as possible. Now team that with what is going on with the Chicago Teachers Union and you get a different picture. Which is why you should help build MORE into a caucus that can make Unity Caucus break a sweat.

Wisconsin: What Happens When Movements Turn Into Campaigns

http://blackagendareport.com/content/wisconsin-what-happens-when-movements-turn-campaigns


Chicago Teachers Vote 90% to strike
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus


Remember that famous Edelman video on how the ed deformers put a big one over on the Chicago Teachers Union? How they needed an "impossible" 75% to strike? I pointed out at the time I wouldn't want anything less if I were going to strike.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/chicago-teachers-union-ctu-strike-authorization-vote-158260415.html

And YES, many of the teachers are YOUNG who know little or nothing about the union -- until our pals at CORE and the CTU started educating them.


Mike Klonsky explains why even before the count was in.

Why teachers will vote yes

Sitting at a coffee shop a few days ago, I was asked by some friends, how I felt about teachers taking a strike vote. They couldn't understand, especially in these tough times, why any teacher would want to go on strike. I told them about what I saw at the CTU rally a few weeks ago and why I left the rally and march of thousands of teachers, feeling certain that any strike vote taken would surpass the 75% needed to authorize a strike.

The revelation came to me after interviewing a group of young, white, women, suburban-raised and schooled, teachers in the crowd at Grant Park. From what I could tell, many of them had only been teaching for a few years and none of them probably even knew anyone who belonged to a union, say 5 years ago. Now here they stood in the park, fists in the air singing along with thousands of other teachers, the old IWW tune, Solidarity forever, for the union makes us strong.

As we marched down Michigan Ave. and then up Adams St. past CPS headquarters, they chanted strike, strike, strike until union march monitors waved for them to cool the chant. After all, the union doesn't want to risk a strike unless there's no other option. But these young teachers had had enough and were ready to put it all on the line for the future of their profession.

I asked my friends, "what do you think the mayor would have to do to turn these teachers, who went into the profession for the love of teaching,  into union militants?  After a short review of Rahm's war on unions and on the teaching profession, I think they got it.

----------
Car Talk -- the funniest program on radio -- or anywhere --- going away in September
This was sent by my friend Bob, a retired industrial arts teacher. Don't forget to listen today at 10AM.

I was motivated to post a comment on the following article on the demise of a favorite NPR program, in the Saturday, June 9, 2012 edition of the New York Times. Hosts of 'Car Talk' to Retire After 35 Years of Automotive Banter.

The brothers Tom Magliozzi and Ray Magliozzi, whose show has been a staple of NPR for decades, will stop producing new shows this fall.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/08/hosts-of-car-talk-to-retire-after-35-years-of-automotive-banter/?nl=todaysheadlines

Most of the comments were from suburbanites or upscale folks, who I felt were missing something important. Below is a comment I posted (as "Bronx Bob") responding to the article as a result of trying to teach "Industrial Arts/Technology Education" for 28 years in NYC high schools, under an indifferent/hostile city administration & education department.

"For a New York paper, I notice few local comments.  While stereotypes about affluent/effete New Yorkers abound, the majority of us struggle to get by and the many of us try keep our aging cars on the road just a little longer, in a city that leaves the majority of its residents poorly served by mass transit. While much of the upscale NPR audience appreciates the Magliozzi brothers' sophisticated humor, many folks miss the interaction between mechanical wisdom with intellectual wit and heartfelt humanity.

All to often, we don't expect to find these qualities in the same person (or garage, for that matter).  But these a 3 fields of human should interact more, but due to our intellectual prejudices against those that inhabit the mechanical/physical world, those inhabitants are rarely allowed to appear in the public eye as fully rounded humans. Mechanical literacy, one of many valuable intelligences, was once offered as varied shop electives to all students in our academic schools. The "applied" arts (ceramics, auto shop, culinary arts, wood shop) complemented the "fine" arts, along with academics in a rounded education.

The current politically mandated corporate-style "school reform" with its focus on testing, data and accountability has resulted in the "narrowing" of the curriculum, eliminating much of what is not tested.

Here in NYC, scores of large, comprehensive community high schools. that have educated generations of New Yorkers, have been closed, over the objections of students, parents and their communities. Their former buildings have been crammed with 5 to 7 charter and mini schools who fight each other over limited space, facilities and resources. None of these new schools has any interest or space for these electives. I have seen dozens of modern, fully equipped shops dismantled at the request of the new, incoming schools who wanted the space for classrooms. This is going on in other cities as well. Where will our future "Car Talk" hosts and articulate callers come from? Not from our cities anymore!"

=============
The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

The DOE Special Education Passover Plot

Thou shalt not put SPED or ELLs in charters

The LORD BLOOMBERG said to his knave Dennis Walcott, "Yet one plague more I will bring upon the public schools. I deem neighborhood public schools shall accept all children with special needs whilst I deny them adequate resources to service such needs.” 

June 8, 2012 -- Norm in The Wave -- www.rockawave.com


The DOE Special Education Passover Plot
By Norm Scott

The LORD BLOOMBERG said to his knave Dennis Walcott, "Yet one plague more I will bring upon the public schools. I deem neighborhood public schools shall accept all children with special needs whilst I deny them adequate resources to service such needs.” And Walcott said, "Thus says the LORD BLOOMBERG. I will go forth in the midst of the public schools and all of them shall die (eventually), especially those with the most senior and highest paid teachers. But against any of the people of charter schools, either man or beast, not a dog shall growl; that you may know that the LORD BLOOMBERG makes a distinction between the evil unionized public schools and the good non-unionized charter schools.”

And the LORD BLOOMBERG thus saith to his servant Walcott: “Tell every charter school to take the leg of a lamb and smear the blood of doth lamb on the doorpost, so the angel of death of the public schools shall know to pass IEPs over the charter school and not deposit even one child with an IEP (or English Language Learner either) in saith charter school.

"And parents of children in classes with high class sizes shall be mixed with such children that require more intense help than they shall receiveth and thus overburdened teachers shall not be able to give such attention to all children and parents of such children shall get perturbed and blame and degrade and defame such public schools and seek out charter schools while I send my knave Walcott to smite such public schools into closure and turn such buildings built with public funding into the hands of doth privatizer charter school management organizations which shall taketh a 15% commission for services and make sure to pay extremely high salaries to all who run such charter schools. Thus I have spoken.”

And Walcott doth did as he was told, as he always doth does when LORD BLOOMBERG doth speak to him.

=====================
OK, so let’s get serious. The Bloomberg education destruction machine has ordained major changes in special education that will put special needs children in regular classrooms in neighborhood schools, but with little of the support they truly need, thus burdening classroom teachers and school administrators even further with even more responsibilities. Parents may even be pressured to support modifications of their children’s IEPs (Individual Education Plans mandated by law for children with special needs) that will lesson the services they really need.

I received this email from Mona Davids, who ironically heads an independent charter school parent advocacy group, NY Charter Parents Association (NYCPA).

We need your help and our teachers' help. DOE is implementing destructive, unproven special education "reforms" this September with no support for parents and teachers.

To summarize:
• The DOE is implementing special education reforms beginning this September that will deny children with IEP’s their mandated classes, services and support.
• The DOE is implementing these reforms forcing students with IEP’s to attend their neighborhood school even though the schools do not have enough trained, professional general & special education teachers and cannot provide the mandated classes, services and support required by law in the IEP’s.
• The DOE’s reforms will not improve student achievement because they do
not support research based effective practices.
• The DOE is decreasing the funding for full-time integrated co-teaching services and full-time special classes forcing principals to coerce parents to change their child’s IEP because they don’t have money to provide all mandated services and supports.
• The DOE is implementing these reforms without notifying all parents about these reforms affecting general education and special education students in September.
• The DOE is violating Special Education law and our most vulnerable children’s civil rights by sending students with disabilities into schools that are not prepared to meet their needs.

We need to get word out about these destructive reforms. It's not fair to our children and it's not fair to our teachers.

Supplement: since I wrote the column June 6, Mona has sent out more materials plus a comment from Loretta Prisco. First Loretta:

Norm,

 

There are some significant points missing in the discussion of special ed. "reforms".

 

When Walcott visited D.31, I asked the following question:

 

The money follows the child. If a child's IEP mandates a 12:1:1 but there are only 7 children in the neighborhood school who need these services, how will the school pay for it?

 

The response: the situation "escalates" to the network leader. If the network leader cannot help, it "escalates" to the DOE.  To me, though not stated in the response,  that means that the network leader and DOE will tell them what to cut and how to change IEPs.  They never never said that funding would be given to meet the mandates.

 

If they continue to rate/punish/close schools as they do now, the idea is not a bad one.  For the most part, Special ed kids do not score as well as general ed. That is why they need services and are in special ed.!   When one school gets too many special ed. kids as some do now, their scores go way down. In addition, by necessity, because of labeling schools, the school often focuses on the learning and behaviors of special ed., and general ed is slighted. That was the case in almost every SURR school -their spec. ed. population was over 25%.  Superintendents did that to prevent the number of "failing" schools.  Limit the number of schools that have special ed in your district and you limit the number of "failing"schools. 

 

In addition, they will be able to cut teachers with "creative"programming. Program all of the kids in one class for mainstreaming in the same period and the teacher will be free.   Program all of a class for  SETSS in the same period and the teacher now has another "free"period. Send them to  related services during the same period and there is another "free" period.  Send them to chorus, art, lunch, gym without the self contained teacher.  This will loosen up the self contained teachers program and he/she can cover 3-5 self contained classes in a 12:1 or 8:1 setting in one day.  This can be done in larger elementary school, but more of a challenge.

 

 

Loretta

And Mona:

Yet, the DOE is still moving forward. Unacceptable. Join us at our press conference demanding the DOE stop violating the rights of students with special needs. These "reforms" must be delayed until they've sorted the issues out. Parents should not be forced to change their child's IEP to suit the school budget!  Press conference June 12, 12 noon at City Hall.

 Daily News

ARISE Coalition says schools not prepared adequately for reforms involving students with special needs


System-wide effort in 2013 to move students with disabilities into mainstream classes

Support Class Size Matters Skinny Award Dinner - June 12, 6 PM

If you like the work Leonie Haimson does this is her annual event to raise funds. Did you know she has a fabulous intern who assists her? Don't make Ellie work for nothing. Even if you are not going send in a contribution. If you watch what Leonie does all the time, she is the best defender teachers have.

Why are they called the "Skinny" Awards? Because Eli Broad gives out his ed deform awards.

I met Leonie about a decade ago through a teacher at the Delegate Assembly who read Ed Notes and suggested we had a lot in common. Few people knew who she was at the time. Since then she has become a rock star. I was the one who suggested she start a blog because her work was so good it seemed the world should know about it (I want that on my tombstone). She introduced me to Patrick Sullivan and Diane Ravitch. She is now nationally connected through Parents Across America with other parents around the nation just like her. Amazing -- there are lots of Leonies, but our one and only here in NYC.

--------------
MORE

Police Estimate 400 at Pearson Field Test Protest

Pearson Rally Pics here

What a day. What a rally this morning. I'll just let the press stories and the pics I took tell the story. Video is processing tonight and I'll try to get a piece up tomorrow. Look for Jaisal Noor's professional version next week. I met loads of new people today and would love to write about it but too late and I need some sleep. I did head up to Central Park after to hang with some of the amazing parent activists and then over to the MORE education committee meeting that covered 2 chapters of Diane Ravitch's book -- we had a great session talking about high stakes testing and accountability. I stopped by the E4E meeting with John King on the way out and of course I was banned for not being a member and when I tried giving out my  leaflet they called security on me and thet told me I had to stand outside despite the fact this CUNY is a building I pay taxes for and not a play tool of private interests. Then I saw press going in  - E4E doesn't allow teachers in who don't sign the pledge but anyone in the press can go -- except me of course. Evan Stone lied to security by saying press had to sign up in advance to be allowed in but every member of the press told me that wasn't so. Should E4E be banned from CUNY events for making up stories to security? I will file an official complaint.

Here are some stories on the protest. My pics are here. See more on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/436323489726279/

http://dianeravitch.net/2012/06/07/parent-to-pearson-let-my-child-learn/

http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/162683/schools-boycott-latest-round-of-standardized-testing

http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/06/07/parents-and-students-say-enough-to-more-testing/

WSJ: Parents Protest High-Stakes Exams Outside Testing Company Offices

NY Daily News: Parents and students protest dummy exams by ‘talking pineapple’ test-maker

Pearson Rally Pics

I'm putting up some text in a separate post. Here are 24 pics. What a great event.
Also see:  www.parentvoicesny.org/

Chicago Strike Threat Causing Panic: Brizard Call for Internal Union Info

“They are fishing, and we don’t participate in fishing expeditions,” said Lewis. She and other union officials made high-profile appearances at their former schools to cast their ballots.  

CEO Jean- Claude Brizard’s team asked the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board to issue an emergency order to have the union secure election material and provide the IELRB and the district access to them. The district wants 20 different pieces of material from a copy of the ballot to the “educational flyer provided to each member explaining the reasons for the strike authorization vote” to information on the messenger services retained to deliver ballot boxes.

This report below from the Catalyst gives the scoop. It shows just how effective the Chicago Teachers Union has been in a campaign that is so unusual for any union to be conducting, especially in a state next to Wisconsin. I remember when the UFT conducted some kind of strike vote over a decade ago -- I think under Giuliani -- remember him and the days when the union leadership was holding a countdown until the day he leaves? -- everyone knew it was bullshit and the DOE didn't even bother to pay attention.

Brizard was principal of Westinghouse HS in Brooklyn and then went to the Broad Academy and rose up the chain of incompetence to HS district superintendent in Brooklyn and then on to ruin the Rochester schools where he received an overwhelming vote from teachers of "no confidence" which made him highly qualified to be hired by Rahmbo Emanuel to run (down) the Chicago schools even more than Paul Vallas or Arne Duncan did.

Here is the full report from the Catalyst --go to the link to read Brizard's letter to teachers.

As teachers cast votes, CPS wants access to ballots

By: Rebecca Harris and Sarah Karp / June 06, 2012

Tags: Chicago Teachers Union

 

As Wednesday’s strike authorization vote began, a battle began brewing between the district and the Chicago Teachers Union over the voting process itself.

CEO Jean- Claude Brizard’s team asked the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board to issue an emergency order to have the union secure election material and provide the IELRB and the district access to them. The district wants 20 different pieces of material from a copy of the ballot to the “educational flyer provided to each member explaining the reasons for the strike authorization vote” to information on the messenger services retained to deliver ballot boxes.

In a letter to the IELRB, district lawyers argue that because Senate Bill 7 sets out a process for how a strike should occur, the labor relations board has the power to monitor it.
“We want to make sure there is integrity in the process,” Brizard said.

CTU President Karen Lewis countered that CPS has no right to the material. Union officials already said they planned to have local clergy observe the vote-counting and will preserve the ballots.

“They are fishing, and we don’t participate in fishing expeditions,” said Lewis. She and other union officials made high-profile appearances at their former schools to cast their ballots.

A spokeswoman for the labor board said both the Chicago Teachers Union and CPS had filed documents with the board in recent days, but she declined to make them available without a Freedom of Information Act request. Law firms for the parties involved did not respond to requests to release additional documents.

The conflict underscores the importance of the strike authorization vote and the high stakes of the outcome. Brizard walked a fine line on Wednesday, saying that on one hand, regardless of the results, CPS and CTU will continue negotiating toward the goal of reaching an agreement before school starts in the fall.

But Brizard also emphatically argued that teachers should delay the vote and allow an independent fact-finder to issue a report on July 16.

“Teachers are being asked to vote on inaccurate information,” he said. “This is a serious process.”

He added that teachers only get one vote. Once teachers authorize to strike, they can’t reverse that decision, added spokeswoman Becky Carroll. (The vote, however, does not require the union to call a strike.)

Lewis and other union officials countered that the new process for calling a strike and requiring 75 percent approval makes it critical that the vote take place before school lets out for the summer. Once teachers disperse for the vacation, it would be difficult to get enough members to participate, union officials said.

Lewis said Wednesday morning she was confident that she can get enough members to authorize the strike. Showing the union can reach that threshold and that a strike threat is real will speed up the negotiation process, not thwart it as Brizard has maintained, she said.
“We want to get there [and reach a contract settlement] before August 27. We don’t want to wait till then,” she said.

Out in schools
Early Wednesday morning, Lewis went to King High School to cast her ballot. Lewis, who taught at King before taking the helm of the CTU, was greeted with hugs from students, teachers and even the police officer stationed at the school.
Throughout the morning, King’s teachers unceremoniously picked up their ballots in the main office, filled them out, stuffed them in envelopes and went back to their classes. Students were taking finals on Wednesday.

Many of the teachers wore red shirts to show their support for the union. Social studies teacher Andrew Lambert had donned a blue shirt, but said he did vote to authorize a strike. “I am young and didn’t do the laundry,” he said. “I think that this vote is more important for young teachers because we have to live with the consequences for our entire career.”
Still, it was unclear whether King would get 100 percent participation or approval this first day. David Robbins, one of the union delegates, said that 59 of 70 members of the staff participated in a survey last month that was meant to be a dry run for the vote: 56 of 59 responded that they thought the union should reject the existing CPS contract offer.
Robbins said there’s a mix of reasons why people might sit out a vote, which essentially will mean they are casting a “No” vote.

But at other schools, delegates expected 100 percent of union members to vote in favor of the strike. CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey appeared at Senn High School at 7:30 a.m. to cast his vote and talk with teachers. “People said, ‘What are you doing here? This building’s 100 percent (in favor). Go somewhere they need your help,’ ” he said.

At Ray School in Hyde Park, teachers were eager to cast their ballots. By 8:30, all but 15 of 60 teachers had already done so. Teachers also contributed to a pot-luck breakfast, and a table nearby was heavy with donuts, coffee and other treats.

Union delegate John Cusiack said he expects everyone will authorize the strike.
Like other teachers interviewed on Wednesday, he said that the overall direction of CPS, and education reform generally, is what teachers are voting against. He said he is against efforts such as firing tenured teachers and replacing them with new staff, which happens in turnaround schools.

“In some schools they have done that several times and it is still no different,” he said.
Therese Wasik, who is retiring from Ray this year, said she was glad she got a chance to vote.  Her first year in the district, she worked one day and then went on strike. She said she remembers being nervous that her job wasn’t safe. Because she’s retiring, she has no such concerns.

“I have been in the union for more than 30 years and I know what I would want if I were here,” she said.

At Gale Elementary in Rogers Park, Head Start teacher Maxine Gladney – who has been with the district since 1968 – said that CPS’ treatment of veteran teachers had persuaded her to vote for the strike authorization.

“It’s something we should be doing, or we’re going to end up like Wisconsin, like a lot of other places, and we’re going to have nobody to protect us,” Gladney said. “We are blamed for things we are not responsible for, decisions [CPS] makes that are not up to us.”
Joseph Hill, a special education teacher, said that he supports the vote as well. “We are the only city employees that are asked to work longer for free,” he said.

 He is not optimistic that a vote will pressure CPS to cave in to the union’s demands. “They’re not going to give us a pay raise. We’re just going to need to go on strike,” he added.

But parent volunteer Tameka Leonard, who has three children at Gale, said she was unhappy about the vote. “I think it’s too early to be talking about a strike. It’s summer break. You’ve still got time to negotiate,” she said.

And, she noted, she’s pleased with Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s initiative to extend the school day because of the number of kids she sees running around the neighborhood with nothing to do after school.

Fred Smith: Saying No to This Week’s Field Tests

Using a no-stakes test to evaluate questions for next year's high-stakes exams? This author thinks it's a bad idea.

 

http://www.citylimits.org/conversations/175/testing-before-the-test-how-to-prep-next-year-s-questions

 

By Fred Smith

Friday, Jun 1, 2012 

 

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The time has come to scrub New York’s field testing program before launch next week. The State Education Department is reverting to stand-alone field tests, an approach it acknowledged to be fundamentally flawed in 2009.
Stand-alone field tests are self-contained. Students take them so the publisher can try out new items for future use. Results, good or bad, have no direct consequences for the students.

Author

Fred Smith

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SED wants to try out new questions on 488,000 students in grades three through eight at 4,078 schools statewide, including 1,029 New York City public schools. This non-mandated testing is in addition to the embedded field test questions that were planted inside April’s statewide exams.The aim is to create a pool of items the publisher, NCS Pearson, can draw upon to assemble next year’s English and math exams. The quality of next year’s exams therefore hinges on how well students in the field test sample represent the population for whom the next round of exams is being developed—not only in composition, but also in their motivation to do well on try-out questions.
And motivation is the rub.
Common sense tells us that students will not strive to perform well in June—even less so on experimental tests they know won’t count against them—having suffered countless testing drills during the year capped off by April’s grinding high-stakes exams.
Recent history sounds the alarm. In 2009, when a different company was producing New York’s exams, the results reached implausible heights. Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch thought the scores were suspicious. “We have to stop lying to our kids,” she said. Test experts quietly observed that the underlying trouble was with separate field testing—exactly what’s happening next week—because it provided inaccurate information. Students taking the field tests knew they weren’t real and didn’t give their all. Their indifferent effort and resulting poor performance on the field tests led SED and the test-maker to see the items as relatively difficult and to underestimate the level of success students would truly reach when try-out questions went onto the real (a.k.a. operational) exams.
Duped by the data, they lowered the score needed to pass. When students took the operational exams seriously, they performed better than projected, and extremely high percentages were deemed proficient.
That sequence moved SED to adopt the “embedded field testing” approach taken in April—in which try-out questions are interspersed in the same test booklets with questions that count. Students can’t tell the difference, so they should try hard on all of them.
An SED memo to superintendents said the benefits of embedding multiple-choice questions included “a better representation of the student population and more reliable field test data.”
But SED did not embed enough items. While the exams took considerably longer to administer, they didn’t yield sufficient material from which to construct future exams.  
To overcome this deficiency, SED and Pearson have altered their five-year, $32 million agreement in order to impose many different tests next week, particularly 12 that contain reading passages with multiple-choice items.
Meanwhile, SED/Pearson has kept parents and the public in the dark. This year’s Field Tests School Administrators Manual tellingly omits a single sentence from last year’s: Parents should be informed of the dates and the purpose of the tests.
Why the secrecy surrounding these non-mandatory tests? Do they fear a backlash of resistance?
Perhaps they should. A growing number of parents have begun to see the pernicious impact testing overkill has had on education. They’re tired of hearing that next year the program will get it right. Parents don’t want to keep putting their children through the testing wringer. They are saying “Enough!” and questioning the validity of such blunt instruments in judging students, teachers and schools.
The return to stand-alone field testing only sharpens their appropriate concerns. Surely both SED and Pearson know that stand-alone field testing takes New York back to a costly, unviable exercise that cannot produce solid information because student motivation will be lacking.
An independent investigation is long overdue. It’s finally time to forcefully correct the disastrous course we are on.

Loretta Prisco

We can always count on Fred Smith to tell the truth about testing. How fortunate we are to have his voice which adds rationality and truthfulness to the testing issue.

MORE Forum:The Trouble With Accountability @ Thu Jun 7 5pm - 7pm

To be discussed on June 7:


The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Diane Ravitch

Chapter 8: The Trouble with Accountability
Chapter 9: What would Mrs. Ratliff do?

Next session will be:
Thursday, June 21st, 5 – 7pm
Unequal by Design, Wayne Au
Epilogue

The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Diane Ravitch
Last Chapter

All sessions will be at
The CUNY Graduate Center
365 5th Avenue, Room 5414
New York, NY 10016

Bring a Photo ID
Email MORE: more@morecaucusnyc.org

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Parent-led Protest Against High Stakes Testing Thursday, June 7th

I will be there to tape this. And see below for notes on Pearson feeling the heat.
See Leonie Haimson at Schoolbook:

The Lessons of Pineapplegate

PRESS ALERT

Press Contacts:

Martha Foote            

Tel 347-967-8159

martha_foote@hotmail.com

Anne Stone

Tel 917-757-3618

anne.judith.stone@gmail.com

Parents in X* Schools Boycott Field Tests for High-Stakes Exams:

Fed Up With Over-Testing, Parents Protest at Pearson Headquarters

"Enough is enough - we want more teaching, less testing!"

WHAT:        Press conference and demonstration against the State Education Department, the NYC Department of Education, and Pearson over excessive and high-stakes standardized state testing.

WHEN:        Thursday, June 7th at 10:45 A.M.

WHERE:      Outside Pearson headquarters, 1330 Sixth Avenue, between 53rd and 54th Streets, Manhattan.

VISUALS:   Parents and children holding posters and giant puppets; a theatrical marching band; children in costumes.

WHY:         From June 5th to June 12th, children across the state are being forced to give up learning time solely to serve the research purposes of billion-dollar test publisher Pearson, which has a $32 million contract with the New York State Education Department. But parents in an unprecedented number of schools (number to be revealed at the press conference) are fighting back by refusing to allow their children to take these field tests and joining a protest at Pearson headquarters. 

*Number to be revealed at the press conference

Here is a comment from a NYC teacher pointing to the Pearson spin job at the Pearson site: 

In my seven years of teaching, I have written many "tests" to measure the learning of my own students. I weed out unfair questions by reading the test over carefully and revising it as needed. Sometimes I ask colleagues for suggestions about wording or presentation. On rare occasions a student raises his hand and asks for clarification about the wording of a question. If I can answer him without compromising the content I'm testing, I do. Having the ability to recognize when you don't understand something and asking a reliable person for clarification is, after all, an important college- and career-readiness skill. Apparently the test-writing experts at Pearson cannot determine the fairness of a question without subjecting hundreds of students to it first. Field testing DOES affect students; this year I had 3 students (2 with special needs, 1 an English Language Learner) break down crying during the state math test upon encountering untaught non-grade-level material that may or may not have been embedded field items. Now that teacher evaluations are going to be tied to test scores, I guess the field tests will affect me too!

Here is an internal communication about their response strategy.

Dear Colleagues, This spring testing season, we’ve seen misinformation and misperceptions on standardized assessment permeate media coverage and call into question Pearson’s role in the educational testing process. Doug Kubach, our CEO of Assessment and Information, shared information today on NEO to answer your and your customers’ questions on testing.  He also announced the launch of a new social media campaign to demystify testing for parents:  “Parents, Kids & Testing.”  Through the campaign, we will share links to education and testing resources along with information about testing in all 50 states and U.S. territories for parents and their children.  To read Doug’s full announcement, visit his blog on NEO. Regards, Shilpi Niyogi Executive Vice President, Public Affairs ---------------- Another response: Dear Colleagues: Here in our Department of Hispanic Studies at the University of Northern Colorado we have been using the texts published by Pearson.  However, in view of the company’s involvement in high stakes standardized testing and the stranglehold the regimen has on public schools, and thanks to all the information that has come through this open forum subscribers’ list, we dropped Pearson from our Spanish curricula for our Spanish 101 and Spanish 102 classes.  I summarized our rationale in the attached letter to a CEO at Pearson. In appreciation, Don Perl The Coalition for Better Education, Inc. www.thecbe.org  -------   Sandi Kirshner                                                                                                                        Executive Vice President Pearson Higher Education 75 Arlington Street Boston, MA 02116                                                                            May 23, 2012 Dear Sandi Kirshner: I appreciate your detailed response received on May 22nd to my questions regarding Pearson’s “philosophy of education.”  Here in Hispanic Studies at the University of Northern Colorado we have discussed in some depth the most appropriate direction for implementing resources for our Spanish language students.  I think a bit of professional information about me is relevant at this time.  As a middle school teacher in the academic year 2000 – 2001, I was charged with administering high stakes standardized testing to my inner city students.  I studied the issue in considerable depth and after much deliberation decided that I could not, in good faith, administer these tests and still consider myself a professional educator.  That act of civil disobedience began a journey to raise the awareness of the citizenry of the dangers posed by high stakes standardized testing.  Enclosed please find a copy of the letter dated January 16, 2001, stating the reasons for that refusal.  We started a coalition, we forwarded a ballot initiative, we have advertised on billboards on the roadways of Colorado advising parents of their rights as their children face high stakes standardized testing, and have played a part in crafting legislation to take a bit of the onus off the testing regimen. In view of this mission and our moral opposition to the dangers inherent in high stakes standardized testing, and in contemplation of  Pearson’s involvement in the creation of these tests now so ubiquitous throughout the nation’s public schools, we must look to other publishing houses to provide our students with the necessary resources for Spanish language acquisition. Sincerely, Don Perl Department of Hispanic Studies University of Northern Colorado Greeley, Colorado 80639 don.perl@unco.edu 970-351-2746 cc Seth Osburn – Pearson Publishing – 16816 South First Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85045  ------------ Hello, In trolling on the Internet, (I Googled "field test" "New York" "2010"), I somehow stumbled on to this! http://www.fehb.org/gr38ftmatrix-1014.pdf (I've saved to my hard drive and doc is attached, in case it disappears online.) It came from: http://www.fehb.org/ Franklin Essex Hamilton BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services) The embedded link to NYSED looks dead, but the info here says that each school's strand number stays the same from school years 2010-11 through 2013-14. So perhaps this is a way to predict what field test your school might be offered next year and the year after! For example, I don't know my school's strand, but from looking at this, it seems my school is "E3." This year's field test was 5th grade math; looks like  next year's is 5th grade ELA. Thanks, concerned NYC parent of a fourth grader/amateur detective ;)

Joe Nocera: Income Gap Tied to Decline of Unions

Joe Nocera must have seen the GEM film "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman," the film the UFT doesn't want you to see -- but you can online) where we use graphs to make the point that the decline in unions since the 1970s is directly related to the growing income gap.  His column today in the Times (Turning Our Backs on Unions)
really nails the point that the liberals' abandonment of the union movement (think Woody Allen comment on Al Shanker destroying the world when he got the bomb) has had a major impact.

We see that in the support of even liberal Democrats and celebrity liberals supporting charters and in the general assault on teacher unions. The tone and tenor of Nocera's article is a sign that the assault has gone so far it is beginning to turn against the assaulters. But the problem from out end is the loser -- we all want to cooperate--  mentality of our union leaders. When Nocera criticizes them in his piece it is from the wrong direction -- as if they were really fighting and not capitulating enough. He misses that point by a mile.

I would ask the question about Paul Krugman, the real liberal on the Times. He has been writing about many of the same issues but blames the Republicans and lets Obama and the Dems off the hook. And he says nothing about the ed assault on teachers by both parties. Let's hope both Krugman and Nocera begin to shine a light on that, especially given that Michael Winerip may be gone from the Times.

Turning Our Backs on Unions

By JOE NOCERA

“The Great Divergence” by Timothy Noah is a book about income inequality, and if you’re thinking, “Do we really need another book about income inequality?” the answer is yes. We need this one.

It stands out in part because Noah, a columnist for The New Republic, is not content to simply shake his fists at the heavens in anger. He spends exactly one chapter on what he calls the “rise of the stinking rich” — that is, the explosion in executive pay and what he calls “the financialization of the economy,” which has enriched one small segment of society at the expense of everyone else.

Mostly, he grapples with the deep, hard-to-tickle-out reasons that the gap between the rich and the middle class in the United States has widened to such alarming proportions. How much have technological advances contributed to income inequality? Globalization and off-shoring? The necessity of having a college education to land a decent-paying job? The decline of labor unions?

That last one, I have to admit, caught me up short. My parents were both public high school teachers, who proudly walked picket lines when the need arose. My hometown, Providence, R.I., was about as pro-union a city as you could find outside the Rust Belt. But like many college-educated children of union parents, I have never been a member of a union, and I viewed them with mild disdain.

As Andy Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union, put it to me: “White-collar professionals tend to appreciate what unions did for their parents. But they don’t view today’s janitors or nurse’s aides in the same way.” Instead, they — or, rather, we — tend to focus on the many things that are wrong with unions, exemplified these days by the pensions of public service employees that are breaking the backs of so many cities and states. Unions seem like a spent force, and we tend not to lament their demise.

Noah includes himself as one of those liberals “who spent too much time beating up unions,” as he told me recently. (He and I are both members of the informal Washington Monthly alumni society.) His thinking began to change in the early 1990s when he read “Which Side Are You On?” It is a powerful meditation on the difficulties unions face, written by Thomas Geoghegan, a Chicago labor lawyer. Researching “The Great Divergence” reinforced Noah’s growing view that when liberals turned their backs on unions — when they put, in his words, “identity politics over economic justice” — they made a terrible mistake.

Noah places the high-water mark for unionism in the mid-1950s, when nearly 40 percent of American workers were either union members or “nonunion members who were nonetheless covered by union contracts.” In the early postwar years, even the Chamber of Commerce believed that “collective bargaining is a part of the democratic process,” as its then-president noted in a statement.

But, in the late-1970s, union membership began falling off a cliff, brought on by a variety of factors, including jobs moving offshore and big labor’s unsavory reputation. Government didn’t help either: Ronald Reagan’s firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981 sent an unmistakable signal that companies could run roughshod over federal laws intended to protect unions — which they’ve done ever since.

The result is that today unions represent 12 percent of the work force. “Draw one line on a graph charting the decline in union membership, then superimpose a second line charting the decline in middle-class income share,” writes Noah, “and you will find that the two lines are nearly identical.” Richard Freeman, a Harvard economist, has estimated that the decline of unions explains about 20 percent of the income gap.

This makes perfect sense, of course. Company managements don’t pay workers any more than they have to — look, for instance, at Walmart, one of the most virulently antiunion companies in the country. In their heyday, unions represented a countervailing force that could extract money for its workers that helped keep them in the middle class. Noah notes that a JPMorgan economist calculated that the majority of increased corporate profits between 2000 and 2007 were the result of “reductions in wages and benefits.” That makes sense, too. At the same time labor has been in decline, the power of shareholders has been on the rise.

“Say what you want about the abuses that labor committed,” says Noah. “They were adversarial. They weren’t concerned enough about the general prosperity. Some of them were mobbed up. But they were necessary institutions.”

Not surprisingly, Noah closes his book with a call for a revival of the labor movement. It is hard to see that happening any time soon. And unions need to change if they are to become viable again. But if liberals really want to reverse income inequality, they should think seriously about rejoining labor’s side.

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.