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Monday, August 19, 2013
MORE Weekly Update: Come to our summer series on building an active UFT chapter in your school
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Hilarious Parent Report on Tweed/DOE Test Disaster Briefing
I went to the one on Thursday evening and got the impression that they were trying harder, because the tests were harder and the students weren't prepared so they tried harder .. and then Walcott had to leave to go to Hostos (where they don't have to try harder) to dance with the Alvin Ailey dance troupe. Thomases took over and he tried harder but then Alice Wong figured it was time to end because he was trying so hard he was exhausted. Whoever the next Mayor is, the scores will go up and s/he will be very thankful to those who tried harder.
Howler Howls at Krugman and Press Corps
This column comes quite close to being deceptive. As a matter of fact... it goes over that line....I'm a Paul Krugman fan. It is the first thing I read in the Times every Monday and Friday. As I was reading the Krugman piece this past Friday (Moment of Truthiness) something was bothering me when he wrote about the open distortions and mistruths that are never challenged:
The breakdown of the mainstream press corps has been a giant problem for decades. Another huge problem: the way the guild will airbrush this problem away. Daily Howler on Krugman column.
aren’t there umpires for this sort of thing—trusted, nonpartisan authorities who can and will call out purveyors of falsehood? Once upon a time, I think, there were. But these days the partisan divide runs very deep, and even those who try to play umpire seem afraid to call out falsehood.My immediate thought was, yes, there is supposed to be an umpire. It is called the press. Like, just maybe the very paper Krugman works for, which, to take education coverage as an example, will print any lie or distortion coming from Arne Duncan, Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee (where are stories on her cheating while the Times hammered Atlanta), Bloomberg, et al.
You'll note that Krugman never goes near the education issue while his colleagues Brooks and Kristof go wilding on teachers and their unions. Krugman talks about the Republican privatization agenda but doesn't connect the Democratic neo-liberal agenda which doesn't stray all that far. Dems may want more government spending but they want to hand the money spent to privatizers, at times making tea party anti-government types look rational.
Anyway, I was glad to see the Daily Howler (In our view, Krugman goes over the line!) take direct aim at Krugman's piece and the press corps in general though I think, as former teacher who does cover ed issues, he doesn't take enough aim at the biased ed deform press.
Press corps gets airbrushed away: Has our political system “been so degraded by misinformation and disinformation that it can no longer function?” That’s the question with which Paul Krugman started yesterday’s column. Plainly, we’d say the answer is yes. We'd say our system has been disabled that way for a rather long time. In our view, misinformation and disinformation were thoroughly clogging the system at least by the start of the Clinton-Gore years. By the end of those years, the disinformation drowned us. In that sense, Krugman was raising a very good question. If anything, he was raising this question a bit late in the game.Good. Howler ties the Clintons to the game. But his aim is on the press corps and Krugman's letting them off the hook.
Krugman correctly suggests that our system has been degraded by misinformation to the point of breakdown. But can you see who’s been airbrushed out of the tableau he’s painting? In the passage we have posted, Krugman portrays a troubling dance between politicians and voters. Not a word is included about a third group—our badly degraded press corps. Remarkably, the press corps doesn’t exist in this column. It’s airbrushing all the way down!
Traditionally, the press corps is supposed to address misstatements by politicians! This is a very basic part of the way our system is supposed to work. Traditionally, even eighth graders have been entrusted with this basic knowledge. America’s press corps, the so-called “fourth estate,” has always played a key role in their civics texts. Krugman wiped this group off the face of the earth.Well, some people -- those in the battle against ed deform -- certainly might agree that if the ed press corps didn't exist we just might be better off. But then again, I might ask Howler to pay more attention to the ed deform crowd and their supporters in the media (like Education Shmation).
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Chicago: Rahm sends police to protect crew sent to destroy historic community center... Rahm, Barbara Byrd Bennett order destruction of 'La Casita'
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| Norm, Lisa, Gloria, George Schmidt with La Casita Occupier, July 2011 (Thnks to Gloria) |
Reports all day coming in from Substance on this open warfare by the ed deformer/neo-liberals on the community. You can follow events on the Substance web site.
Two years ago at our last meetings in Chicago we went to La Casita for a few hours to talk to people - George Schmidt gave us a tour. I will hunt down that video and post it tomorrow.
We are at war. It has been declared on us. We are in middle of a field without cover (of our union especially) and they are using every weapon they can throw at us and somehow the real reformers are still standing - and fighting back with pea shooters (and Ravitch) against drones, tanks, mortars, cluster bombs, etc.
Here are links to reports in reverse order.
THEY TORE IT DOWN BEFORE OUR EYES!' CPS contractor begins to destroy La Casita despite library treasures and supposed 'asbestos danger'
LA
CASITA IS NO MORE. By a little after ten o'clock in the morning, Board
of Education contractors had leveled the library that had been created
by the demands of a community that did not . . .La Casita protests continue through the night of August 16 - August 17, 2013 after police arrest three people... Chicago Public Schools blocked trying to demolish iconic 'La Casita' community center
It
all started when a 6:45 dance class at La Casita was about to start. At
6:30, a community meeting was being held within the building called "La
Casita," the "Little House" adjacent to Whittier . . .Rahm sends police to protect crew sent to destroy historic community center... Rahm, Barbara Byrd Bennett order destruction of 'La Casita'
In
a brazen move reminiscent of the midnight destruction of Meigs Field by
his predecessor, Richard M. Daley, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his
handpicked schools "Chief Executive Officer" Barbara Byrd Bennett
dispatched the Chicago . . .Friday, August 16, 2013
AFT Drops Hammer on Dearborn Federation of School Employees
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| If I could Photoshop guess whose face you'd see? |
These AFT people showed up at 1107 Washington , the DFSE office on Monday, July 22 at 9:00 a.m. demanding the keys, files, passwords, home addresses, and everything else!!!!! They were asked to leave and refused. The Dearborn Police were called and they asked them to leave. The AFT told the police they were not leaving. The police escorted the AFT reps to the sidewalk and told them not to come back without a Court Order. Before AFT left, they unplugged our computers.Are you surprised that our wonderful national union leaders in the AFT would resort to goon tactics when questions of secession arise within a local? (I've always said that if an opposition ever won a close election in NYC Unity would never turn over the keys to 52 Broadway. They would go to the AFT to protest the election.)
But I do have mixed feelings about locals that want to leave the AFT. I'd rather see them stay and battle. Imagine of the FMPR's 40,000 members had remained to join with other anti-ed deformers?
Mike Antonucci of EIA has tracked these AFT invasions for years and even though Mike has an anti-union bent he is often the only one to report on these events and Ed Notes has picked up on them.
Here is one report we did:
Feb 24, 2008The FMPR has successfully fought government attempts to squash the voice of teachers and community in decision-making in Puerto Rico's school system. The FMPR effectively seceded in 2006 from American Federation of
And another:
Here is Mike's July 30 report which I had sitting in draft version and forgot to post.Aug 25, 2010Last year we reported on how Randi Weingarten sent in the AFT goons to invade the offices of a nurses local in Portland Oregon after they held a meeting to discuss disaffiliation from the AFT (see below for links). We had ...
AFT Troops Topple Another Local Affiliate
Written By: Mike Antonucci - Jul• 30•13
Let’s face it, the National Education Association is a bunch of amateurs when it comes to dropping the hammer on an uppity affiliate. The national office of the American Federation of Teachers simply won’t tolerate any talk of local affiliates abandoning the reservation and making their own way.
AFT has a long tradition of staging a coup de main in locals that disaffiliated, or even tried to disaffiliate. The union failed to crush an uprising in Puerto Rico, but it still employed the same tactics against the Colorado Federation of Public Employees and the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals. In the latter case, the U.S. Department of Labor declared AFT’s actions unlawful. And moot.
The latest target of AFT’s wrath is the Dearborn Federation of School Employees (DFSE), a 900-member education support employee local in Michigan. AFT claims in a civil suit against DFSE that the union president conducted a disaffiliation vote in April without following the by-laws. According to the Detroit News, AFT “held an evidentiary hearing June 14 and placed the local under temporary trusteeship.”
“The incumbent officers aren’t prepared to comply with AFT orders. … They want to hang on as long as they can,” said AFT attorney Bruce Miller. “We want them to relinquish their office, AFT will take over the local and restore democratic practices and pull together the warring factions. All of the votes were against getting out of the AFT.”
As you might imagine, those incumbent officers have a different tale to tell. In an open letter to members, DFSE president Sharon Korhonen and five other union officers describe an out-of-control national affiliate:
No one is taking this union over. Do not listen to lies. These AFT people showed up at 1107 Washington , the DFSE office on Monday, July 22 at 9:00 a.m. demanding the keys, files, passwords, home addresses, and everything else!!!!! They were asked to leave and refused. The Dearborn Police were called and they asked them to leave. The AFT told the police they were not leaving. The police escorted the AFT reps to the sidewalk and told them not to come back without a Court Order. Before AFT left, they unplugged our computers.…If AFT’s sole interest is to ensure the well being of the DFSE members, they have an odd way of doing it. On the accusations of three members, AFT has attempted to take over the office, send the office help home, disconnect the computers and take over your union dues. They have limited the actions of our lawyer and frozen our money, making it impossible to pay utilities, rent and HFCC scholarships, among other obligations.Membership involvement does “continue to be a hallmark of a strong union,” and that is why we are relying on your active participation to create a stronger DFSE. Let’s take off the gloves and get in this fight. AFT’s actions by their statement, has been instigated by three disgruntled members. Didn’t think in this country you could seize control and force a new election when three members are unhappy with the outcome of the last election. Dictators gain power when people don’t think and don’t seek the truth.It looks like this will be hashed out in county court. I suggest that local affiliates with a notion about leaving AFT plan accordingly.
Here is the complete DFSE letter posted at http://dfse4750.net/
Letter to DSFE members
July 25, 2013
To All DFSE Members,
This is in response to a letter that was sent to many of you, including former DFSE members currently working at HFCC. You have the right to know what is not true.
No one is taking this union over. Do not listen to lies. These AFT people showed up at 1107 Washington , the DFSE office on Monday, July 22 at 9:00 a.m. demanding the keys, files, passwords, home addresses, and everything else!!!!! They were asked to leave and refused. The Dearborn Police were called and they asked them to leave. The AFT told the police they were not leaving. The police escorted the AFT reps to the sidewalk and told them not to come back without a Court Order. Before AFT left, they unplugged our computers.
There was never retaliation against any union members. According to our Constitution, Article XXVII, section 12, Any member of the Executive Board accused of malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance shall be suspended from the Executive Board pending trial. Two members of the DFSE Executive board were charged by other members, not the president.
The allegations of repeated attempts to disaffiliate from AFT stems from the April issue of the Forward which was to provide space for both sides. The “Con” side was written by a para pro and the AFT representative, Ginger, was asked to write the “Pro” side. Publication deadlines were extended twice for the AFT rep, yet no arguments were submitted.
Any real hearings on decisions that would affect the direction of the local were addressed at monthly union meetings. No one was stopped from speaking, including members of the Executive Board. The allegation that erroneous information was sent is one concerning a court case dropped by AFT, which could have been about our 3% illegally taken from us in 2010. AFT was asked for clarification before the e-mail was sent. No call back, no clarification was given. No response. We attached a copy of the Court Order showing the case was withdrawn. AFT provided nothing.A Union to be effective must stand together for the GOOD OF ALL MEMBERS, not any one person or any one group’s interest. Your Union has always demonstrated its ability to defend its members to the fullest and will defend the members and the majority against this and all atrocities.
If AFT’s sole interest is to ensure the well being of the DFSE members, they have an odd way of doing it. On the accusations of three members, AFT has attempted to take over the office, send the office help home, disconnect the computers and take over your union dues.. They have limited the actions of our lawyer and frozen our money, making it impossible to pay utilities, rent and HFCC scholarships, among other obligations.
Membership involvement does “continue to be a hallmark of a strong union,” and that is why we are relying on your active participation to create a stronger DFSE. Let’s take off the gloves and get in this fight. AFT’s actions by their statement, has been instigated by three disgruntled members. Didn’t think in this country you could seize control and force a new election when three members are unhappy with the outcome of the last election. Dictators gain power when people don’t think and don’t seek the truth...AFT is going around to different buildings telling partial truths and avoiding questions by saying that they DON’T know what their lawyers are doing and what the “show cause hearing” is about.
The” AFT Team” that are going around having meetings with members, talk about lost, missing funds, even though an independent CPA has audited the DFSE books each and every year with no irregularities, missing, lost or stolen funds. Independent CPAs are required by law to include such findings in their reports. Financial reports are given at every meeting. Reports have been redesigned many times to provide the membership the information they requested. Audits were done by a CPA and available at each union meeting. An official copy has never been passed out to members, but is always available for viewing.
This Union, as it has always done, will continue to tell it’s members the truth, answer all questions and give the members answers to all the rumors. If you have any questions, or hear any rumors call the DFSE office at 313-274-5900 for the truth.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
E4E Slammed in Minnesota by PEJAM
The new strategy is to convince the public that teachers really do want the corporate reforms, but that it is actually their own unions that are keeping them silent. It is a devious approach that can pit new teachers against veteran teachers. These newer groups receiving money from Gates, the Waltons, and other corporate foundations are started and led, by mostly TFA alumni, and recruit heavily among TFA corp members and other younger teachers.... (PEJAM)DFER tried this tactic trying to claim E4E had the voice of NYC teachers ( Joe Williams' DFER Propaganda Laugh Riot ...) while pointing out that few voted in the election and one fifth of those who did vote did not do so for Unity, trying to give the impression they were E4E types while neglecting to mention it was MORE, as anti-E4E as you can get, that garnered those votes.
Yes, E4E facing increasing failure in every venue has to keep jumping to other states like bedbugs to try to remain viable. They have to find ways to spend those bucks ($3 million recently from Bill Gates, who might as well dig a trench and throw his money into it.)
I spoke to some people from LA in Chicago this past weekend and they are also dealing with E4E and have opened up a dialogue with them, viewing most of the teachers involved as naive and misguided and hoping to bring some enlightment to them. Good luck. The leadership will never let anyone get near their rank and file -- one reason they no longer seem to be holding open -- or any - meetings here in NYC -- we often stood outside and handed out leaflets as to what they were all about.
PEJAM points to "reporter" Beth Hawkins hawking E4E -- playing the role Gotham plays here I guess.
Here is the full post from PEJAM:
 | Public Education Justice Alliance of Minnesota(PEJAM)
|
E4E: The Sheep Clothing for Corporate...
The neoliberals, corporate foundations, billionaires, and others looking to privatize our public schools work hard to sell their actions as that of local grassroots organizations whose only concerns are for the children, especially poor, urban, and minority children. These astroturf groups have worked their way into every state, including Minnesota. We have the well-financed MinnCAN and Students First among others, but in their efforts the corporate reformers keep running into the public school teachers and their unions who actually do care about ALL children.
These corporate "reformers" have long realized that if they are going to privatize the public schools, they must eliminate the the voice of the teachers, and the unions that protect their right to speak in defense of their students. The "reformers" have had a great deal of success, convincing both Republican and Democratic politicians to pass legislation that weakens teacher unions and public education. The push-back, however, has been growing steadily. Led by rank-and-file members who have demanded more action from their own union leadership or have taken over the leadership as C.O.R.E. did in Chicago, teachers are calling out the corporate reformers for what they are - privatizers and union-busters.
The corporate reformers are feeling the heat, but they will not go away quietly. A new strategy has evolved in recent years with the help of the "happy-face" of the corporate reformers - Teach for America (TFA).
The new strategy is to convince the public that teachers really do want the corporate reforms, but that it is actually their own unions that are keeping them silent. It is a devious approach that can pit new teachers against veteran teachers. These newer groups receiving money from Gates, the Waltons, and other corporate foundations are started and led, by mostly TFA alumni, and recruit heavily among TFA corp members and other younger teachers.
In many cities, it is Teach Plus that has taken on this role. It's stated goal is "to engage early career teachers in rebuilding their profession to better meet the needs of students and the incoming generation of teachers." Here in Minnesota, Educators for Excellence (E4E) is the group leading the effort to hide the union-busting/privatization agenda behind "real teachers." This past week, E4E officially launched in Minnesota, following a typical corporate product launch strategy.
MythPost
Beth Hawkins, the "education reporter" for MinnPost and one of the Twin Cities biggest cheerleaders for the corporate take-over of public education, is now trumpeting Educators 4 Excellence (E4E) and their claim to offer teachers "a bigger voice in education policy." Hawkins presents E4E and its members empathetically, as idealistic teachers who have been marginalized in education policy decisions and ignored by unresponsive teachers unions.
Hawkins and MinnPost are helping Madeline Edison, now the full-time Executive Director of Minnesota's E4E, with the corporate style rollout of the "new" reform group. They are selling a movement that is not only not needed, but in fact is detrimental to public education. MinnPost published three "news" stories about E4E in four days (See here, here, and here). MinnPost is an on-line "newspaper" run by Joel Kramer, father of Minnesota's first family of corporate education reform and the former owner of the daily newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The Star Tribune probably would have covered the E4E "news" itself, had it not been so busy shilling for E4E's older sibling of corporate education reform - Teach for America (TFA) - (see here, here, and here).
Launch of a Corporate Product
Launching a new product, or in this case an organization, is not done with a single press release, or event. "Reform" groups like E4E use the same marketing strategies of their financiers. David Lavenda, a product strategy and marketing executive offers some advice for a successful product launch on FastCompany.com, including the following:
Start early. Don’t expect reporters to write about you when you want. Get a head start and begin preparing long before you plan to launch. A rolling launch is a great way to keep the conversation going.
Get partners involved. Channel and marketing partners who have a financial stake in the success of the launch are natural allies. The more people that are talking about the release, the better chances it will get pickup.
E4E-Minnesota has been rolling out its launch for well over a year. It had its origins in a group with another combination of letters and numbers - E3MN, which stood for Empowering Educators for Equity MN. E3MN began in early 2012, and its first Facebook Event was a meeting with the co-founders of Educators 4 Excellence.
The groups E3MN identity appears to have been a place-holder as the group built it's E4E brand. They focused on connecting with "marketing partners" by building alliances with other corporate reformers. The second Facebook Event they hosted in June of 2012 was a happy hour meet-and-greet with MinnCAN.
In addition to building a core group with mostly TFA teachers and partnering with other corporate reformers, the group needed to build a local financial base and Minnesota has its share of corporate philanthropists. In September of 2012, The Robins, Kaplan, Miller, and Ciresi Foundation for Children awarded E3MN a grant of $17,500. The foundation's website explains that the grant was to
"support the expansion of Empowering Educators for Equity (E3MN) to impact student success through teacher organizing and leadership for systemic legislative and contractual changes."Michael Ciresi, is a famous local lawyer who ran twice for the DFL nomination for U.S. Senate, but lost. The Foundation that bears his name, and he leads, has become the major supporter of local corporate education reforms. E4E received the grant from his foundation because they promote an agenda that helps to dismantle teachers' unions, thereby opening the door to the free market...and closing the door on public schools.
"Liberal" Slight of Hand
Ciresi is similar to many Democratic (DFL in Minnesota) politicians and party activists, in that he claims to favor a liberal or progressive political agenda, but more often follows a corporate agenda. E4E leaders, and presumably many of its members follow this same approach, at least in regard to education. E4E, like the "reformers" who claim the Civil Rights mantle, does not just focus on dismantling teachers' unions, but also claims to promote a "progressive" agenda. This is "reformer" slight of hand, a distraction from the real work of E4E.
In Beth Hawkins propaganda piece published last Tuesday, she helps E4E's new Executive Director, Madaline Edison, sell the idea that focusing on "hot button" contractual/union issues "misses the point." Sydney Morris, the national co-founder and co-CEO of E4E, claims the aim of the organization is "to give teachers a greater voice in making policy on many issues."
Following another element of launching a new product E4E and MinnPost "put the focus on the people not the product." Hawkins introduces us to a number of E4E teachers who want to speak up for their students on issues beyond the classroom. They mistakenly believe, however, that E4E will empower them to do that. Members quoted in the article speak about the fight for immigrations issues and need for early childhood education. Edison, who has never been a member of the teachers' union, suggested that the unions weren't dealing with these issues and that's why they needed to create E3MN (E4E).
With this claim, E4E accepts and perpetuates the neoliberal myth of unions as greedy and self-interested. Social justice has long been a part of union work. Teachers' unions have certainly made mistakes and at times have been on the wrong side of social justice issues, but unions have actively worked for social and racial justice through most of there history.
Another E4E member in Hawkins article talks about her strong family union background and how she wanted to "wear red" in solidarity when union teachers in Chicago went on strike. Despite her union upbringing, she describes the union contact as "that’s where all the power just goes away." Beth Hawkins supports this twisted statement by describing the Minneapolis teachers' union contract as "notoriously complicated."
The third E4E story in MinnPost last week was written by James Kindle. He was a part of the first group of TFA corp members in Minnesota in 2009. To his credit, he has remained in the classroom. However, he also portrays the teachers' contract as a barrier to his "autonomy" as a teacher and his ability to speak out for social justice.
Kindle lets us know that he is the son and grandson of teachers, and like his mother, he wants to be able to look back on his teaching career and say, "Oh, yeah. I enjoyed every day." Unfortunately, if Kindle and E4E (and TFA) are successful in their corporate reform efforts, most teachers will not have much of a career on which to reflect. Without committed teachers organized in strong unions, the profession will be filled with under-trained temporary workers.
This is how the conservatives have taken the upper hand with regard to education policy. Many self-proclaimed liberals/progressives, who were once the ardent defenders of a strong, democratic system of public schools, have accepted the argument that the "free market" actually serves the public good and does so in an equitable way. Making matters even worse, these so called liberals have accepted the idea that unions and collective bargaining protections are relics of the past.
The Corporate Reformers and their Agenda
Focusing on "hot-button" issues such as tenure, seniority rights, and teacher evaluations, "misses the mark" according to Madaline Edison. E4E wants teachers and the public to see these issues as part of a larger "progressive" agenda. Edison, Kindle, and the other E4E leaders fail to see, or refuse to admit that this is a front for the neoliberal agenda. Their work will weaken the unions they claim to value and strip teachers of their voices they claim to be empowering. They are helping to privatize our public schools.
To become a member of E4E, teachers must sign the organization's "Declaration of Teacher's Principles and Beliefs." A third of this declaration is dedicated to "Restore[ing] Professionalism to Education." According to the document this is done through teacher evaluations that include "value-added student achievement data" (value-added measure - VAM), weakening tenure, and eliminating "last-in-first-out" (seniority rights). The document also contends that we can recruit, retain, and support "the highest quality teachers" by implementing "performance-based pay" (merit pay).
These are the positions of the corporate reformers. To argue these "reforms" will empower teachers, "give them a voice," and/or "autonomy" is naive at best. Merit pay is not a new idea as educational historian, Diane Ravitch, has pointed out. It is professionally insulting, divisive, and it does not work, especially in a profession that thrives on collaboration. Not only has merit pay not worked, Daniel Pink demonstrates that merit pay, in fact, produces worse results!
Value-added is another failed experiment. Despite repeated research demonstrating the inability of VAM to measure a teacher's performance, corporate reformers continue to argue it will separate bad teachers from good, and good teachers from great. What VAM actually does is promote more teaching to tests, and penalizes teachers who are willing to take risks.
Attacks on tenure and seniority are at the heart of the "reformer's" efforts and central to organizations like E4E. Tenure is depicted as "lifetime job security," something that makes it "impossible" to fire under-performing teachers. Tenure does not guarantee a job. It guarantees due process, if you are threatened with disciplinary action, including termination. It requires that administrators demonstrate "just cause" for disciplinary action or termination, and in Minnesota, state statue identifies five areas that can lead to termination at the end of a contract year (see Subdivision 9). Minnesota state statute also lays out reasons for immediate termination of a teacher (see Subdivision 13)
Tenure in Minnesota is only achieved after a three-year probationary period. During this time, the district can terminate a teacher contract without cause. What tenure grants is relatively small, but important power. It enables teachers to disagree with administration and express that disagreement with less fear of repercussions. This is one of the few things that does in fact "give teachers voice," and this is what E4E wants to weaken or eliminate.
Seniority works in concert with tenure to protect teachers from arbitrary loss of employment. In addition to termination due to reasons listed in statute, a teacher can also find themselves unemployed if the school district needs to layoff teachers due to declining enrollment and/or a decline in funds. Requiring layoffs be done in reverse seniority order or "last-in-first-out" (LIFO), prevents administrators from discriminating with regard to layoffs. In other words, they cannot layoff a teacher as a way around the due process guaranteed with tenure. Again, E4E want to eliminate seniority (some argue for making it "one of a number of factors" in determining layoffs), but any weakening of seniority creates a way around the due process guaranteed with tenure.
Losing tenure and/or seniority protections would silence teachers. This is the exact opposite of what E4E claims as its main goal. All of these attacks on teachers and our unions are empowered by a misguided faith in meritocracy. Young teachers are told they are being hurt by more senior teachers being "protected" even when they are "less competent." They are led to believe that administrators, with standardized test scores, can objectively distinguish between teachers who are competent and teachers who excel.
Those who are truly concerned with ensuring that teachers have a voice and are able to speak up for their students, should stand with the teachers' unions. Work to get rid of testing and "accountability" regimes that are really about dismantling public education, and defend tenure and seniority. Then we can work together on behalf of all students, for racial and social justice.
Teachers and the public need to understand the real agenda of Educators 4 Excellence (E4E) and expose this group for what they really are - the sheep's clothing for the corporate education reform wolves.
Posted by: Rob Panning-Miller
Additional information on the origins of E4E's national organization can be found here:
http://raginghorse.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/educators4excellencebrought-to-you-by-the-insidious-arm-of-the-disgustingly-rich/
Matt Damon Still a Save Our Schools Superstar
This week Jeb Bush, a shameless supporter of these destructive corporate reform policies, had the audacity to criticize Matt Damon for choosing not to subject his children to the test-driven, standardized public education Bush has helped create.Jeb Bush and ed deformers are afraid of Matt Damon. Following up on NYC Educator's great post on Matt Damon (Who's Afraid of Matt Damon?) the other day, this from SOS:
To most Americans, Matt Damon is a Hollywood celebrity and superstar.
But to Save Our Schools supporters Matt Damon is a very different kind
of hero. In the summer of 2011, he put the filming of his new movie,
"Elysium" on hold and flew overnight to Washington, DC to address the
thousands of teachers, students, and families assembled in the
sweltering heat for the Save Our Schools rally. In his Speech he
told the crowd of the many contributions that his own well-rounded,
enriching, public school education made to his future personal and
professional success. He decried the damage being done to public schools
by the corporate based reforms of high stakes testing and
standardization and promised to "have our backs" in the fight ahead. His
words energized and inspired the crowd and gave us hope that our plight
to save public education would not go unnoticed.
Since
2011, the damage of corporate driven reform policies has been further
compounded by the widespread closing of neighborhood public schools in
many cities, rampant privatization of public education by for-profit
charter operators, and the Race-to-the-Top mandates that tie teacher
evaluation to high stakes tests. Common Core Standards are ushering in a
standardized national curriculum that is impervious to the individual
needs of children, the wishes of families, and the professional judgment
of teachers. A "new generation" of national assessments has been
initiated and funded by corporate giants, and threatens to suck the
remaining sparks of creativity and imagination out of our nation's
classrooms despite the valiant efforts of teachers.
This week Jeb Bush, a shameless supporter of these destructive corporate reform policies, had the audacity to criticize Matt
Damon for choosing not to subject his children to the test-driven,
standardized public education Bush has helped create. In a cynical twist
of reality, Bush accused Damon of supporting "choice" for his family
but not for the rest of the country. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
The
kind of "school-choice" touted by Bush (and his many bi-partisan
allies) offers nothing but a phony solution for parents whose
neighborhood schools have been financially decimated or closed and whose
kids are forced to travel across cities (and gang lines) to attend
school. "School-choice" reformers know that school vouchers don't come
close to buying a ticket into the kind of private schools their own kids
attend. They also know that privately-managed charter schools (not
parents) have all the "choice" when it comes to providing an education
to children who are low-performing, those who have special needs, or
those who are learning English as a second language. Reformers know that
parents aren't the ones choosing to hire non-unionized, underprepared
"instant" teachers, and they're certainly not choosing to warehouse our
poorest children in scandalously overcrowded classrooms.
The
kind of "choice" Matt Damon and his mother, Early Childhood Educator
Nancy Carlsson-Paige support is entirely different from the type
advocated by corporate funded politicians like Jeb Bush. It is the
choice we must make as a nation to provide all our children with great
public schools right in their own neighborhoods. It is the choice to
ensure that public schools have small class sizes, enriching
individualized and age-appropriate curriculum, professional career
educators in every classroom, authentic and meaningful on-going
assessment, and a wide range of community support services to offset the
effects of poverty afflicting an astounding 20% of our nation's
children. It is the choice to furnish schools with fully stocked
libraries that spark the love of reading, to offer meaningful
professional development options for teachers, and to build partnerships
between schools and families to ensure that we serve the needs of all
our children, not just the privileged and more able. Once we succeed in
making these choices, the dilemma that Damon and so many parents face
will dissolve.
So,
is Matt Damon still a Save Our Schools superstar? You bet! And so are
the growing numbers of parents "opting out" of high stakes tests,
teachers who are boycotting tests and resisting one-size-fits-all
national standards, and students who are beginning to make their
opposition heard.
Save Our Schools invites all supporters of public education to join us on August 24th as we participate in the 50th Anniversary March on Washington. Our banner will remind the nation that "Public Education is a Civil Right." We know that Matt Damon agrees.
Another Blogger Slams Eva's Success Academy Charter Scam
Owen Davis at The Commonal follows up on Gary Rubinstein's analysis of the Eva Moskowitz charter scam which we reported on the other day: Rubinstein: Success Academy Scores Based on High Attrition Plus Other Factors.
Davis takes Gary's work a bit further:
But how much fun is it to see Eva jump so far ahead that there will be intense scrutiny? Even her usual trolls have toned it down.
Owen concludes with:
http://commonal.tumblr.com/
Davis takes Gary's work a bit further:
It’s true that Success owes its success to more than just general student attrition. But Rubinstein only examined the overall numbers. When you look at specific student demographics, even more troubling patterns emerge. I’ve been dissecting the student data of prominent NYC charters since Democracy Prep and I sparred over its unmistakable pattern of steadily losing students with disabilities and students learning English. (They promised a “debunking” of my post. I’ll assume it’s still forthcoming.)I actually get hot thinking about a slam at the arrogant Democracy Prep crowd which for some reason annoy me even more than Eva's crew. (I admit to having had some great discussions with some Success parents and officials -- we have been sparring for so many years.) Democracy Prep recently pushed out a program for GED students.
At Success, the pattern is similar, if not more stark. Not only do its classes contain disproportionately few students with disabilities and English language learners (ELLs), but their numbers almost invariably decrease with each passing year. This should have no uncertain effect on test scores.
But how much fun is it to see Eva jump so far ahead that there will be intense scrutiny? Even her usual trolls have toned it down.
Owen concludes with:
What’s sad about this is how unsurprising it’s become. High-achieving charters, with no exceptions that I’ve found, enroll fewer needy students, witness substantial attrition of these students, or both. These patterns could reflect some implicit policy, or they could result from the extraordinary behavioral demands charters impose on students. The proximate cause doesn’t matter so much when it comes to test scores, though. Scores resting on high-needs student attrition shouldn’t withstand even the mildest scrutiny, yet they garner unreserved praise from the likes of Mayor Bloomberg and the Post.Read it all, with charts:
It’s just an added irony that one of Moskowitz’s Success expansions literally pushed at-risk students out of an existing school.
I need not dwell on how disturbing all this is. Any notion of success should be predicated on serving the neediest students right alongside those who make “no excuses.” Anything less is reprehensible.
http://commonal.tumblr.com/
Neo-liberalism and Ed Deform and Krugman on Rand Paul's "Better Dead than Fed"
Ed Deform's connection to neo-liberalism can be defined in one dirty word: CHOICE
CORE in Chicago began with 8 people reading Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" to try to make sense of what was being done to the schools because so much of it didn't make sense educationally or even rationally, the idea of a grander privatization conspiracy began to make sense. In fact, the only thing that made sense.Paul Krugman nailed Rand Paul and others of his ilk to the wall in Monday's column, Milton Friedman, Unperson. Some people connect Friedman to the emergence of neoliberalism (see Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine - movie is here) and thus, ed deform which is based on NL.
Krugman doesn't use the term "neoliberal" but has referred to the concept of "shock doctrine" in a 2011 column on Wisconsin's assault on unions where he does give Klein her dibs:
The story of the privatization-obsessed Coalition Provisional Authority [in Iraq] was the centerpiece of Naomi Klein’s best-selling book “The Shock Doctrine,” which argued that it was part of a broader pattern. From Chile in the 1970s onward, she suggested, right-wing ideologues have exploited crises to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises, and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society. Which brings us to Wisconsin 2011, where the shock doctrine is on full display.Remember, CORE in Chicago began with 8 people reading Klein's book to try to make sense of what was being done to the schools because so much of it didn't make any sense educationally, the idea of a grander privatization conspiracy began to make sense. In fact, the only thing that made sense.
Before I go on with Krugman's discussion of Milton Friedman, who called for the end of a public school system, I want to point to a thought I've been having: that basically we are seeing that many Republicans and Democrats are ideologically neo-liberals. Obama, the Clintons and so are in many ways are our union leaders, with Randi Weingarten leading the pack. In other words, you won't see UFT/AFT leaders placing the blame where it is due but instead putting it on individuals: Joel Klein, Bloomberg etc instead of educating the membership as what is really happening so they can be better equipped to defend themselves.
[By the way - look at handing principals unfettered power over the staff and Tweed's often non-intervention no matter how abusive the principal is, as the mini form of neo-liberalism.]
Here is some more info on neo-liberalism, a different animal from what is viewed as "left" leaning liberals in this country.
In the U.S. political liberalism has been a strategy to prevent social conflict. It is presented to poor and working people as progressive compared to conservative or Rightwing. Economic liberalism is different. Conservative politicians who say they hate "liberals" -- meaning the political type -- have no real problem with economic liberalism, including neoliberalism.See Afterburn for more tenets of neoliberalism and you will recognize so much of ed deform policy.
"Neo" means we are talking about a new kind of liberalism. So what was the old kind? The liberal school of economics became famous in Europe when Adam Smith, an Scottish economist, published a book in 1776 called THE WEALTH OF NATIONS. He and others advocated the abolition of government intervention in economic matters. No restrictions on manufacturing, no barriers to commerce, no tariffs, he said; free trade was the best way for a nation's economy to develop. Such ideas were "liberal" in the sense of no controls. This application of individualism encouraged "free" enterprise," "free" competition -- which came to mean, free for the capitalists to make huge profits as they wished.
Now, back to Krugman's piece where he contrasts the libertarianism of Rand Paul with Milton Friedman, actually making Friedman look rational.
August 11, 2013
Milton Friedman, Unperson
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Recently Senator Rand Paul, potential presidential candidate and self-proclaimed expert on monetary issues, sat down for an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. It didn’t go too well. For example, Mr. Paul talked about America running “a trillion-dollar deficit every year”; actually, the deficit is projected to be only $642 billion in 2013, and it’s falling fast.
But the most interesting moment may have been when Mr. Paul was asked whom he would choose, ideally, to head the Federal Reserve and he suggested Milton Friedman — “he’s not an Austrian, but he would be better than what we have.” The interviewer then gently informed him that Friedman — who would have been 101 years old if he were still alive — is, in fact, dead. O.K., said Mr. Paul, “Let’s just go with dead, because then you probably really wouldn’t have much of a functioning Federal Reserve.”OK, we've established Rand Paul is an idiot. But Krugman does some interesting analysis of where the right wing Republican nut jobs have gone:
What ever happened to Friedman’s role as a free-market icon? The answer to that question says a lot about what has happened to modern conservatism. For Friedman, who used to be the ultimate avatar of conservative economics, has essentially disappeared from right-wing discourse. Oh, he gets name-checked now and then — but only for his political polemics, never for his monetary theories. Instead, Rand Paul turns to the “Austrian” view of thinkers like Friedrich Hayek — a view Friedman once described as an “atrophied and rigid caricature” — while Paul Ryan, the G.O.P.’s de facto intellectual leader, gets his monetary economics from Ayn Rand, or more precisely from fictional characters in “Atlas Shrugged.”
How did that happen? Friedman, it turns out, was too nuanced and realist a figure for the modern right, which doesn’t do nuance and rejects reality, which has a well-known liberal bias.One way to think about Friedman is that he was the man who tried to save free-market ideology from itself, by offering an answer to the obvious question: “If free markets are so great, how come we have depressions?”
Until he came along, the answer of most conservative economists was basically that depressions served a necessary function and should simply be endured. Hayek, for example, argued that “we may perhaps prevent a crisis by checking expansion in time,” but “we can do nothing to get out of it before its natural end, once it has come.” Such dismal answers drove many economists into the arms of John Maynard Keynes.
Friedman, however, gave a different answer. He was willing to give a little ground, and admit that government action was indeed necessary to prevent depressions. But the required government action, he insisted, was of a very narrow kind: all you needed was an appropriately active Federal Reserve. In particular, he argued that the Fed could have prevented the Great Depression — with no need for new government programs — if only it had acted to save failing banks and pumped enough reserves into the banking system to prevent a sharp decline in the money supply.
This was, as I said, a move toward realism (although it looks wrong in the light of recent experience). But realism has no place in today’s Republican Party: both Mr. Paul and Mr. Ryan have furiously attacked Ben Bernanke for responding to the 2008 financial crisis by doing exactly what Friedman said the Fed should have done in the 1930s — advice he repeated to the Bank of Japan in 2000. “There is nothing more insidious that a country can do to its citizens,” Mr. Ryan lectured Mr. Bernanke, “than debase its currency.”
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of debasing currencies: one of Friedman’s most enduring pieces of straight economic analysis was his 1953 argument in favor of flexible exchange rates, in which he argued that countries finding themselves with excessively high wages and prices relative to their trading partners — like the nations of southern Europe today — would be better served by devaluing their currencies than by enduring years of high unemployment “until the deflation has run its sorry course.” Again, there’s no room for that kind of pragmatism in a party in which many members hanker for a return to the gold standard.
Now, I don’t want to put Friedman on a pedestal. In fact, I’d argue that the experience of the past 15 years, first in Japan and now across the Western world, shows that Keynes was right and Friedman was wrong about the ability of unaided monetary policy to fight depressions. The truth is that we need a more activist government than Friedman was willing to countenance.
The point, however, is that modern conservatism has moved so far to the right that it no longer has room for even small concessions to reality. Friedman tried to save free-market conservatism from itself — but the ideologues who now dominate the G.O.P. are beyond saving.
If Krugman could untangle that know he should get another Nobel Prize.
AFTERBURN
Note how the merger mania in the airlines leads to LESS choice, higher prices and worse service. Whatever works for profits.
Some tenets of neo-liberalism as described by Elizabeth Martinez and Arnoldo Garcia at CORP WATCH:
The main points of neo-liberalism include:
-
THE RULE OF THE MARKET. Liberating "free"
enterprise or private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the
government (the state) no matter how much social damage this causes.
Greater openness to international trade and investment, as in NAFTA.
Reduce wages by de-unionizing workers and eliminating workers' rights
that had been won over many years of struggle. No more price controls.
All in all, total freedom of movement for capital, goods and services.
To convince us this is good for us, they say "an unregulated market is
the best way to increase economic growth, which will ultimately benefit
everyone." It's like Reagan's "supply-side" and "trickle-down" economics
-- but somehow the wealth didn't trickle down very much.
-
CUTTING PUBLIC EXPENDITURE FOR SOCIAL SERVICES
like education and health care. REDUCING THE SAFETY-NET FOR THE POOR,
and even maintenance of roads, bridges, water supply -- again in the
name of reducing government's role. Of course, they don't oppose
government subsidies and tax benefits for business.
-
DEREGULATION. Reduce government regulation of
everything that could diminsh profits, including protecting the
environment and safety on the job.
-
PRIVATIZATION. Sell state-owned enterprises,
goods and services to private investors. This includes banks, key
industries, railroads, toll highways, electricity, schools, hospitals
and even fresh water. Although usually done in the name of greater
efficiency, which is often needed, privatization has mainly had the
effect of concentrating wealth even more in a few hands and making the
public pay even more for its needs.
-
ELIMINATING THE CONCEPT OF "THE PUBLIC GOOD" or "COMMUNITY"
and replacing it with "individual responsibility." Pressuring the
poorest people in a society to find solutions to their lack of health
care, education and social security all by themselves -- then blaming
them, if they fail, as "lazy."
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Naison Calls for John King's Removal
We've had 3 DUD NYSTATE Ed Comms in a row since 1995. Time to move on.
Dear Speaker Silver and Assembly Member NolanIt is time to remove John King Education Commissioner of the State of New York. Commissioner King purposely decided to score state tests in such a way as to insure that the majority of the students in the state failed. The result was collective humiliation- of ELL students, of special needs students, of students living in poverty- and intimidation of the state's teachers, who future careers will be determined by these scores. The test results were a conscious, malicious "set up"-- and a power grab- by the Commissioner to close more schools, remove more school boards, and put more power in the hands of the state government at the expense of local school districts.This is an abuse of power by an unelected public official. All throughout the state, teachers, parents, students and concerned citizens are rising up to say that excessive testing is squeezing the heart out of public education in our state, driving out the best teachers and principals, and destroying the confidence and morale of our most vulnerable students. It is time elected officials heard their voices. It is time those who serve the public say no to policies that when all is said and done, amount to collective child abuse.I understand that some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the state support Commissioner King's policies. However, I urge you to hear the voices of all those quietly suffering because, through no fault of their own, they, their children and the students they teach, have been labeled "failures."Please work for Commissioner King's removal and put in his place someone who actually listens to the voices of teachers, principals, parents and students.SincerelyMark D NaisonProfessor of African American Studies and HistoryFordham University
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Rubinstein: Success Academy Scores Based on High Attrition Plus Other Factors
I wonder if this could start some kind of charter civil war. What ‘excuse’ is there for these other [charter] schools? Surely behind closed doors they are accusing Success of some kind of manipulation, either by extensive test prep or by booting even more kids than they do. ... Gary RubinsteinGary Rubinstein follows up on his analysis of charter school chains like KIPP and Democracy Prep catastrophic test results with analysis of the one charter chain that blew everyone away. We posted commentary on Gary's previous post: Can We Close the Achievement Gap Between Success Academy and Democracy Prep, KIPP et al?
I loved that Success showed up the other charters as that brings the kind of scrutiny Gary provides as he does with all "miracle" schools. I left this comment on his blog:
We can certainly support the idea of 2 teachers in a room and that makes any comparison with public schools faulty. When you add the “disappeared” who most likely end up in public schools, the SA results don’t look so good given the different climate. So they have money to do this, often due to working young teachers to a bone and replacing them when worn out. Yes, cheap labor with 12 hour days and few career teachers. In no way scalable and over the long run as SA expands to 40 schools even sustainable. Watch the numbers as they get to higher grades. And the point that there is so much demand is bogus as we’ve been saying all along.Yes, I absolutely support the idea of 2 teachers in a class in early grades -- actually, that is the private school model where they put novice teachers in with an experienced one. Great idea but not one that Eva really calls for in all public schools. Too bad because if she did she would not be as evil. But her aim is to undermine, not support public schools.
Gary makes these points:
I don’t think they really prove that there are super teachers out there who can get the ‘same kids’ to excel, even if it is just on standardized tests, since I’m not convinced they are truly the ‘same kids.’ But the ‘reformers’ should be very careful about this. They already had Success as a big success story, as well as a bunch of others like KIPP and Democracy Prep. Now they still have Success, but they have lost some of their schools they used to take credit for. I’m not sure how they can reconcile their idea that test scores are an accurate measure of school quality with the fact that many of the schools they have been touting have lost their luster by that measure.Here Gary looks at the key attrition rates.
So the next thing I looked at was their student attrition. If they ‘lost’ many students, these scores are tainted. Now there is only one Success school that has been around since 2007. That school started with 83 kindergarteners and 73 first graders. Those cohorts just tested in 6th and 7th grade, respectively. The school has ‘lost’ a big chunk of those original 156 kids. Of those 73 first graders in 2007, only 35 took the seventh grade test. Of the 83 kindergarteners, only 47 took the sixth grade test last spring. Overall, they have ‘lost’ 47% of the original two cohorts. If this is one of the costs of having such high test scores, I’m not sure if it is worth it.And talks about the teacher attrition rates:
For the four cohorts that just took the fourth grade tests, those 316 students were, back in 2009, 443 kindergarteners, so they have ‘lost’ 29% of those cohorts. Now their high test scores aren’t completely explained by this nearly 30% attrition rate, but it is still something worth noting as we consider if this program is ‘scalable’ or not.
When a school is ‘healthy,’ teacher are happy there and want to stay there. The Success schools are known to have huge attrition of teachers, in the neighborhood of 50% per year.When push comes to shove, Success Academy will prove to be just another scam charter. Would NYC charter chief James Merriman send his kids there? Maybe he would given that Eva is abandoning the poor kids for the rich ones in Manhattan and gentrified areas of Brooklyn.
Read his entire piece.
And Perdido Street School too.
Just How Did They Get To Be So Successful At Succe...
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