More cheating - DUH!

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

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

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

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

A teacher at Stevenson emailed this:

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

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

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

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

A teacher there said they:

1. Coached students during the test

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Elfrank-Dana On Saying “No”

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

It speaks to the issues without sounding bitter.

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

Thank you.
Schoolgal
Comment on NYC Educator blog

What Lurks Beneath

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I responded:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Lurks Beneath
by Norman Scott

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From The Wave, published November 17, 2006

Ed Notes Query Response: Grieving U observations

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

Original Query From a high school:

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

Responses

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

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


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

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


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

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

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


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

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

New Action and Unity Caucus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The UFT and Mayoral Control - A Slam Dunk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

George sends us a follow-up.

11/11/06
Friends from New York:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Contract: What Lies Beneath

We have been besieged by questions: After all the rancor and viciousness of BloomKlein where did all this sweetness and love come from? What are the real givebacks?

With fall-out from the phony promises and massive sell-job and threats that a “No” vote would result in dire consequences still echoing from the dreadful 2005 contract, these questions are a signal from many people who have been beaten and battered by recent contracts and have lost faith in the union leadership to negotiate anything that is truly favorable to the members. So, what gives this time? Should we lift the hood even a bit to see what monsters might be lurking beneath?

A clue in the NY Times?
“This time the city extracted no productivity increases or other concessions, which seemed to be part of a larger strategy by the Bloomberg administration to pave the way for separate talks aimed at achieving crucial savings on health care and pension costs, which have climbed sharply in recent years... But negotiations over health benefits are to be conducted separately in talks with the Municipal Labor Committee, the umbrella group for the city’s unions, and since Ms. Weingarten is the committee chairwoman, her good will is essential if headway is to be made on insurance issues.”

A follow-up headline proclaimed: “With Teacher Pact at Hand, City Looks at Health Costs.”

Will higher co-pays be the price?

Does this contract basically waive the right of our union to bargain about health benefits by giving this power to the Municipal Labor Committee, in effect removing member rights in perpetuity to vote on any loss of valuable medical benefits? Does the contract assign to the Municipal Labor Committee a “blank check” to negotiate cost containment initiatives and program modifications to City Health Benefits Program that are not subject to our approval? If MLC agrees with Mayor, will UFT members get to vote on potential mandatory health care contributions? (Transit workers were able to vote on whether or not to contribute 1.5% of their salary for health benefits.) If a flat rate percentage is tacked on in the future, what is the real raise, especially for the newer lower-salaried people?

And let’s not forgot the possible quid quo pro in exchange for supporting (or not opposing) mayoral control, which if continued will continue to be an unmitigated disaster for the teachers, students and parents in NYC. Can you get somethin’ for nuthin’ with Unity in charge?








Is the love back?








It feels like April! It’s only November
The teachers in my school are so angry about the current contract. We don’t even have time to use the bathroom during the day. When passing colleagues in the hall, the constant comment is, “It feels like April! It’s only early November.” The weight of the workload and schedule are crushing. We are very angry about the current conditions, and the fact that we can’t do much to complain since most of our rights to grieve and to participate in the decision-making processes of the school are gone. The older teachers are afraid — under the current system they can suddenly become “senile” and unable to teach. The younger teachers don’t understand. Whole classes are guinea pigs as large numbers of new teachers “experiment” with what works. Fed-up, on the ICE blog

With only TJC and ICE members voting in opposition, the negotiation committee did not address any of the issues raised by Fed-up when it agreed to a tentative deal with the DOE . The contract extension contains no take backs of any of the givebacks of the 2005 contract: letters in the files still can’t be grieved at step 2; 37 minutes and a thinly disguised 6th teaching period; loss of Circular 6 and reinstatement of potty patrol; loss of seniority transfers; erosion of workplace rights; inability to question administrative decisions; teachers standing at the mercy of anti-union principals who control through intimidation.

A rush to judgement

Check the timetable used by the UFT to rush this agreement through without providing people with adequate time to discuss it or even look over the fine print:

Monday eve: Negotiating committee votes; announcement to press
Tues: 10am Exec bd votes. Jeff and James lambasted by union leaders for "fear mongoring."
Wed: DA votes before having time to consult with the teachers in the schools.

Why? Why not give people some time? After all, this doesn't go into effect for a year.
Why the rush to judgement? That alone should make people suspicious.

Note this from the DOE press release:

The term of the Agreement covers a 24-month and 19-day period beginning October 13, 2007 and continuing through October 31, 2009. This agreement is based upon the 18-month pattern established with DC 37, although it is six months and 19 days longer, which generated additional funds.

In order to address specific needs, the UFT generated internal funding to provide the following benefits:

· Effective October 13, 2007, the annual contribution to the welfare fund will be increased by $100 per member;
· Effective May 1, 2008, a lump sum payment to the welfare fund in the amount of $166.67 per member;
· Effective October 21, 2009, an additional $35 rate increase in the City’s contribution to the welfare fund per member;
· Effective May 19, 2008, increased longevity payments for certain employees who have at least five years of service;
· Effective May 19, 2008, an increase in the uniform allowance payable to Supervisor of School Safety; and
· The Department will increase by 12 the maximum number of sessions of paid extracurricular activities for which compensation will be provided to coaches and teachers in charge of various athletic and extra-curricular activities.

What does "internal funding" mean?

Bloomberg and Klein Drop the Big One While Weingarten Goes Along for the Ride

Reprint from Education Notes, Spring 2003

When former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani declared that the Board of Education should be blown up there was a huge outcry, particularly from the leaders of the UFT. But when the Bloomberg administration dropped an atomic bomb on the system, the breathless reaction of UFT leader Randi Weingarten was: "What Mike Bloomberg did today was declare war on the entrenched bureaucracy. The implementation is going to be tough. There are a lot of transition issues that have to be worked out. But it is breathtakingly possible.”

Weingarten’s comments are curious considering statements she made as recently as a December [2002] “Meet the President Meeting” in Brooklyn where she lamented the way Klein was destroying the fabric of the school system by tearing down every institution, including many that were so useful to the UFT. For public consumption she will go along with anything the DOE does. Privately, she will blast them. One way or the other, it’s all about public relations. As for the concept of a union fighting for the kind of school system that teachers and children really need, hey, forgetaboutit.

Analytical coverage by Ed. Notes of the massive changes being instituted at DOE will have to wait until future editions. As usual, to the classroom teacher who has been through a zillion chancellors, a lot of this won’t make much difference. And will we be shocked if we see another total revamping of the system if there’s a new Mayor in a few years? Let’s say UFT favorite Bill Thompson becomes Mayor. Maybe the new flavor of the month will be a mushrooming of UFT controlled Teacher Centers (A Teacher Center in every pot?) as the magic answer to our educational problems.

To the 6000 District Office and Central Board people who fled the classroom, the changes might make a large difference. (In the interest of full disclosure, I was one of these people for my last 4 years in the system--boy, did I retire just in time.) We tend to think that many of these people will somehow land on their feet as the new plans call for using many of them in other capacities. We can expect that those with political sugar daddies will have to hustle to find new mentors. One thing is sure. The DOE gurus will start putting their own political buddies into place.

The Bloomberg/Klein (BloomKlein) attempt to break the Byzantine way the school system has operated (we in the district office got to see this lunacy up close and personal every day) by unseating entrenched bureaucrats is not necessarily a bad thing. But the fact they totally ignored people at the lowest levels of the system who have faced the impact of these policies does not bode well. Don’t be shocked to see one lunacy replaced by another.

If resources are truly allocated to classrooms, as Bloomberg and Klein claim they want to do, that would be a good thing. But pardon me if I am skeptical. As far as we’re concerned, a major attack on reducing class size would be a good start. The plan to reduce class size to 28 in middle school English classes is minuscule. Always remember: we are ruled by people who send their own kids to schools where class size is under 20; people who never mention class size in any of their reform packages. With smaller classes you could teach kids to read with phonics or schmonics.

Interestingly, did you hear one word on class size from our union leaders? Like, how about Randi Weingarten saying: it is [all] breathtakingly possible --IF CLASS SIZES WERE SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED? What impact would adding 6000 teachers to the classroom have? For years Ed. Notes has called on the UFT leadership to demand a reallocation of resources to reduce class size. If every teaching resource were put in the classroom class size would be reduced significantly. First, get class size to a point where there is parity with the suburbs. Then worry about staff development, pull-out, push-in and other programs. A system-wide attack on the class size issue is necessary and it should be led by the union. Supposedly crime went down when a massive police presence was placed on the streets. Why hasn’t anyone advocated the same technique to solve the problems in education? Do we think we would have the same problems in the schools if there were enough teachers to really work with the kids? Inundate the classrooms with teachers. Not enough space? Put as many teachers in a room as necessary. And stop using the excuse that teachers have a tough time working with each other.

Instead of our union leader’s kowtowing to whatever schemes come out of the DOE, we should see the UFT and the Klein/Bloomberg truly team join together in a true spirit of cooperation to make the classroom a truly workable place. It is all so breathtakingly possible. It is all so breathtakingly unlikely.

Comment on UFT Charter School

From the NY Times - Nov. 2, 2006

"Mr. Spitzer, on the other hand, has the unions’ support and recently toured a charter school in Brooklyn run by the city union, the United Federation of Teachers. The union president, Randi Weingarten, boasted of creating a model school with no more than 25 students per class and two teachers in each room."

The UFT argued when pushing for the charter school that they would show they would make a model school with the same funds that regular schools are working under. What is needed is the numbers to show how you could have 2 teachers in a room with 25 children. We do know that Eli Broad, one of the leaders of the corporate onslaught on the public schools, gave $1 million towards the UFT charter school. Does Randi's "boast" help or hurt the cause of public education?

Wrinkles in the Iron Curtain

So where was I? Oh yes, last time I was comparing the BloomKlein takeover of the NYC school system with the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe. One of the keynotes of that system was inefficiencies and economic breakdowns, part of the reason for the fall of the iron curtain. Here is where one would expect the analogy to the NYCDOE to fall apart. After all, we have master business people running things in Bloomberg and Klein. But au contraire.

I met a businessman on my recent trip to Prague who sometimes does business with the DOE. He was asking about the impact of BloomKlein on the schools. I gave him my take and mentioned no-bid contracts, in particular the $17 million paid to the consultants Alvarez and Marsal to find savings in the very system created by BloomKlein (as I reported in The Wave – “The A&M Story Tastes Better than M&M’s” Sept. 16, 2006). He said one would at least expect that the business end would be well run. He then told me how he had considered bidding on a big contract but when he saw the RFP – request for proposal — it was clearly set up so that only one company could qualify, a company that had lost the contract at one point because of some impropriety. Thus, even bidded contracts are no bid in reality. So much for keeping costs down through competition. Don’t get me started on all the other inefficiencies perpetrated by BloomKlein.

In totalitarian systems, political correctness counts more than competence — one of the most obvious attributes of the BloomKlein takeover, where the keynote is led by the brainwashing Leadership Academy, also known as the Ministry of Fear.

And fear is central in a police-like state — recently a teacher asked me to meet him in a diner far enough away from his school so he would not be seen.

Fear doesn’t exist only at the bottom. One of the hallmarks of totalitarian systems is the climate of fear among top and middle managers over the “numbers” they are expected to produce. Bad numbers and heads would role. Five-year plans always called for increases that were impossible to meet. So they lied. The rulers could never understand why the economy was failing when the numbers coming in showed such great results. When the numbers didn’t match, the rulers just manipulated the data to show how the system was succeeding.

If you work in a school this must sound familiar. Just check the fear factor among supervisors and their supervisors right up to the regional superintendents — the almost desperation and panic at times — over test scores, grades, graduation rates, attendance and anything else that is being tracked by the data-driven ‘educators’ above. (The number of "reported" instances of changing grades grows by leaps and bounds. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/nyregion/02regents.html)

Whatever the numbers, they are massaged by the rulers at the DOE. This massage even goes beyond the DOE to the state level where the tests were made easier in an election year.

Collectivization, one size fits all curriculum and standardized teaching
Remember studying about the attempts to eliminate individual farms and collectivize agriculture, forcing all farmers to “forget” their knowledge of farming and use standardized state-run methods in Soviet bloc countries? No matter where it was tried, it turned out to be a disaster and always ended up in a reversal where individual farming had to be reintroduced in some form in order to feed the people. There was actually a general trend to attempt to stamp out individualism on a mass basis.

Teachers at the DOE have undergone their own form of collectivization as a one-size-fits-all curriculum was imposed, along with a standardized method of teaching to go along with standardized bulletin boards. Just listen to the similar jargon and acronyms floating around all schools. (You’re out of touch if you think a LEP is someone with a disease on a remote island.)

In totalitarian systems, there were mass book burnings. When BloomKlein took over, books — many brand new costing millions upon millions of dollars — received the equivalent fate when they were banished to school cellars to rot away unused while millions upon millions more was spent on books that were deemed by many teachers not to be nearly as useful as the ones banned.

Control the means of communication
In all top-down controlled systems, how information is presented to the public assumes a crucial role. Behind the iron curtain all press was controlled. In this country, public relations assumes a crucial role and enormous sums are spent on it, certainly a truism of the NYCDOE. But you might wonder if it is all that necessary. The NYC press, owned by business people who are “with” the program, make you think the world of BloomKlein is a Garden of Eden (though recently more and more reporters have begun to see through the mist.)

Except, of course, for the completely non-critical NY Times, which remains immune to the scandals and always manages to report just one side of the story. I used to at least look forward to the Wednesday “Education” page where Mike Winerip would report on events going on in the NYC schools. Since he left, these reports touch down anywhere in the country — except NYC. Maybe Mike stepped on too many toes.

One of the most blatant examples of slavish support by the business community was a recent glowing tribute to Bloomberg and Klein in US New & World Report, owned by Morton Zuckerman who also owns the Daily News and is vice-chair of Klein’s private fundraising “Fund For Public Schools.” Parent activist Maria Dapontes-Dougherty President, D30 Presidents' Council was prompted to write a letter to the editor.
Here are excerpts:

“Mr. Klein's premise was that ‘teachers are the most crucial people in the system’ and yet he shows them no respect and is dismissive of their opinions… Parents are philosophized and politicized as a vital component of the system, but are blocked any time they voice an opinion or try to participate. Schools cannot be run exclusively like a business, in as the ‘product’ of this business are the future minds of our country. They are our children!
“The savings in bureaucracy was utilized to create a new bureaucracy and to fill the pockets of big business catering to education. Mayor Bloomberg's partnering with private groups is costing the system millions of dollars. There was no public input in the expenditure of this public money. The cronyism and entrenched interests are now with big businesses….
“The uniform curriculum led to a massive expenditure in books and materials. There was a large increase in middle management which was the strategy for centralization of the system. After three years of this decision not really making enough of an impact there is now a strategy to decentralize with the creation of ‘empowerment Schools’. So here we are having come full circle in aging buildings with antiquated electrical systems and not enough materials. Our class sizes are bursting at the seams and [among] the highest in the country. Our middle school students still show a high percentage of low performing students and our graduation rate in high school is still a disgrace at 43%. [Massaged into 57% by DOE data managers.]
“If these two men are an example of what leaders are in our great country, then our future is dismal.”

Maria’s letter is a sign of the growing opposition to BloomKlein from parent groups, an interesting development considering the lack of opposition in the early years. Andy Wolfe explains in the NY Sun:
“Upon assuming … control, the mayor and chancellor moved quickly to win over the school system's parental establishment the old-fashioned way — by giving out jobs.
“At a May 9, 2003, press conference organized by the Department of Education, the president of the United Parents Association, Ernest Clayton, praised Mr. Klein's plans to hire parent coordinators in each school, stating that ‘this is the first time we've had a chancellor willing to make a substantial investment in parent involvement.’ Mr. Clayton, who led an umbrella organization of more than 200 individual school parent associations, was perhaps the city's best-known parent advocate.
“By July, Mr. Clayton had given up his post to take a $60,000-a-year administration job: parent support officer in Division 3 in Northeast Queens.
“In fact, many of the more than 1,200 people initially hired as parent coordinators and citywide and regional support staff came right out of the leadership of the parent groups and parent associations, effectively co-opting a key source of potential opposition.”

Now, there’s BloomKlein doing business the old fashioned way —if you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em.

The Wave, November 3, 2006

THE END

Joel Klein’s Iron Curtain

A shorter version of this column appeared in The Wave on October 20, 2006.

When all decisions flow without checks and balances from one source — be it a national leader, the head of a school system, the principal of a school, a union leader, an abusive member of a household — any form of dictatorship — the system inevitably fails. Decisions hatched in the mind of a super powerful person served by sycophants are not subject to the kind of vetting (like someone saying “are you out of your mind?”) and lead to the “emperor without clothes” effect. Some kind of democratic process, often messy, is necessary to prevent the train from running loose down the tracks. If you deal with the daily doings at the NYC Department of Education and with its counterpart the United Federation of Teachers, these words should ring true.

There’s nothing like a trip to Prague and Budapest, a decade and a half out of the yoke of 40 years of Soviet domination, to get one to thinking about similarities to the BloomKlein invasion of the NYC school system. “Are you crazy?” said my wife as we strolled around these incredibly beautiful cities. “If you make this comparison people will think you are nuts.” She’s probably right, but here goes anyway.

The Czech Republic and Hungary were both part of the Soviet Empire that controlled Eastern Europe with an iron fist. Puppet governments were installed but the people saw themselves as invaded by an alien force and feelings of nationalism engendered an anti-Soviet mentality. When the yoke was lifted in 1989, a sense of freedom these nations had never known burst forth. Revolutions in Budapest (1956) and Prague (1968), both revolts suppressed by an invasion of hordes of Russian tanks - bullet holes still show on the walls some buildings - had turned these cities into the epicenter of resistance to Soviet control.

Hungary is about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their Revolution, which lasted from Oct. 23 to Nov. 4, 1956. Being there two weeks before this celebration had an impact.

While on the trip I read “The Incredible Lightness of Being,” Czech writer Milan Kundera’s story of a Czech doctor during the “Prague spring” of 1968 when freedom blossomed and the aftermath of the suppression by the Soviets that August.

Kundera writes, “Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: the criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise…”

Tomas, a brilliant surgeon, is demoted to window washer after the Soviet repression because of a letter to the editor he wrote to a literary magazine during the Prague spring. In the letter, Tomas criticized the apparatchiks (blindly loyal bureaucrats) who had condemned Czech citizens charged with a variety of fabricated crimes and then later claimed they didn’t know and were just following orders. Kundera claims it is irrelevant whether they knew or not. “The main issue is whether a man is innocent because he didn’t know. Is a fool on the throne relieved of all responsibility merely because he is a fool? Isn’t his ‘I didn’t know! I was a believer!’ at the very root of irreparable guilt?”

Let me digress to a story of a NYC teacher who contacted me shortly before I left. Jason (a pseudonym), who has been teaching a number of years, was ordered by his administrators to teach in a certain restricted style in which he was not only uncomfortable, but truly felt was not in the best interests of the education of his students. He refused. The result was a vicious attack by school administrators, coordinated by a new principal who had recently graduated from the Leadership Academy — often compared by teachers serving under the yoke of these graduates as a KGB training ground. He was threatened with a U rating, received visits from regional supervisors, threats of termination, manipulation of personnel that had him at the point of being excessed out of the school, and other techniques taught in the dungeons of the Leadership Academy. Assistant principals who had been supportive and knew him for years turned on him on a dime – the classic response of apparatchiks, the same way Tomas’ boss behaved in the novel.

The struggle reached the point where Jason was pretty much out the door. Realizing he had to think of his wife and kids, he capitulated. He told them he would teach as they wanted him too. (Need I say the union was useless throughout?)

The day Jason gave in, he sat in his car and cried, the first time he had done so as an adult. He just saved his job — you might think they were tears of joy. They were not. Jason cried for having been forced to give up his integrity; for being forced to do what years of experience told him in his marrow was wrong for his students; for being forced to choose between family and principle; for basically losing his profession.

The people who hounded him were smug and satisfied in their “victory” and they now parade Jason around as a model teacher. But they are really parading their conquest as an example to all the others. Jason laughs with irony, knowing full well a crime has been perpetrated against both he and the students he teaches. This battle took a lot out of him and has dissipated some of his passion for teaching. Whether you were in Eastern Europe from the late 40’s through the late 80’s or in the current DOE, passion outside the narrow box of orthodoxy is degraded, not valued.

Did putting Jason through the ringer benefit his students? Apparatchiks who are “True Believers” – Leadership Academy grads and Kundera’s “Fools” - will shout, in unison, “Yes, Children First.” The mentality and behavior of the “True Believers” at the DOE and in totalitarian states are similar and their tactics are scarily familiar.

The Assistant Principals who knew what a good teacher Jason was before and know it is all a crock will claim they were just following orders. Kundera would say they are all fools.

I can’t tell you how many similar stories I am hearing, with many people saying, “Now, it’s just a job.” Or worse, ending up in the Gulag of the DOE – the rubber room.

One day someone will write: “First they came for the senior teachers near retirement; then they came for the non-tenured; then they came for the people who could not produce the results they wanted; then they came for those who could not turn straw into gold; when they came for me, there was no one left.”

Maybe when the iron curtain at the DOE is lifted post BloomKlein and the fear of speaking out against these “state” crimes is over there will be a day of retribution. Meanwhile, the School Scope columns must suffice.

Mr. Klein, tear down that wall!
Klein has built his version of the Berlin Wall between managers and educators. Many of the apparatchiks at the DOE, especially at the Region level who carried out policies they knew were bad for teachers and children — if they were really educators — are now singing a different tune as BloomKlein are reorganizing once again as a way to cover their mismanagement. Region level jobs are threatened as the Empowerment Zone expands and the regions shrink. What has been going on is the replacement of educators with corporate types in the anti-educator modus operendi of the corporate takeover of school systems throughout the country. People trained to be educators are not to be trusted.

Thus, Klein's emphasis on corporate, entrepreneurial types as principals without educational experience. Or taking former educators and brainwashing them at the Leadership Academy before unleashing them (without their muzzles) into the schools.

Enormous sums are spent on doing professional development for all kinds of expensive programs that funnel more enormous sums into the pockets of private companies. What teachers learn in school or what they have learned from experience is denigrated. Yet, a qualified teacher under NCLB is measured by the courses and degrees they complete in education. “Qualifications” are not required of the people being chosen to run school systems, Klein being exhibit number one.

Note this quote by Mike Bloomberg in an article in the Washington Post when he tried to answer criticisms for the lack of parental input under his administration. "Parents know about their kids, but they're not professional educators. There is no reason to think they should be designing a school system or running a school system. Do you want parents to make medical decisions? I don't think so."

Hmmm. Mayor Mike. You sort of skipped the professional educator step when you chose a lawyer to run the NYC school system. If you should ever have to have an operation, I hope you choose a plumber to do the job.

Educators — and by this I mean people who actually taught for a few years — see BloomKlein’s corporate invasion of the school system as a hostile takeover. Sort of like tanks rolling into Prague and Budapest.


Coming soon:
What lies beneath — how the apparatchiks at the UFT almost outdid their counterparts at the DOE when Jason attempted to give out literature critical of the union leadership.

Education Notes - October 2006

Excerpts from the 1 page print edition handed out at the October 18 Delegate Assembly (with cartoon, a joke and a lovely picture of Randi and Bloomberg about to kiss).

PDF of leaflet available for distribution to your school - email me at norscot@aol.com


Contract on Life Support
(see cartoon posted on Sept. 30)

With a tattered contract, we must ask:

What level of responsibility for the erosion of the contract and the general deterioration in working conditions in the schools does the UFT leadership bear? Should UFT leaders be held accountable for their support for mayoral control, the willingness to negotiate givebacks and extended time for money, the lessening of contractual protections, and the severe reduction in protections of seniority? Is there a level of collaboration between the DOE and the UFT that is unhealthy for the members? Or should the leadership’s position be accepted that we are victims of the anti-union “climate of the times” and have done very well compared to other unions?

These are fundamental questions. The issue is whether the current leadership has the will or the capability to stand up to the onslaught of the well-organized forces of BloomKlein that have led to more unbridled power in the hands of principals than possibly in the entire history of the UFT. So far they have been found lacking — just check out conditions in your schools. Can Unity caucus, which has controlled the UFT since its inception over 40 years ago, bear no responsibility?

To understand the UFT one must understand Unity – a massive, monolithic machine that requires a loyalty oath to the caucus that puts its interests over that of the members. Many teachers only found out in the last contract struggle that their own chapter leaders, who were ordered to “sell” the contract to their staffs, were in fact members of Unity who get all sorts of perks like after school jobs, double pensions, attendance at conventions, and even some level of intervention on their behalves from top UFT officials when they have troubles with administrators.

One of the key problems is that the UFT has the trappings of democracy but is really what one would call a totalitarian democracy, a system with elected representatives whose members, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process. In the UFT all decisions flow from the office of the President with little room for vetting these decisions. A massive public relations operation and control of all the organs of communication within the UFT in the hands of the leadership, enforced by the Unity machine to the extent that materials critical of the leadership distributed to the schools are removed from teacher mailboxes and those who have attempted to distribute are threatened.

One response to this system is to build an effective, democratic alternative to the Unity machine that can force Unity to make the kinds of changes that will lead to a union that will stand up for its members. The key is to call for a package of democratic changes, one of which is a return to the election of district reps, summarily cancelled by Randi Weingarten years ago. A so-called bipartisan committee to examine the issue is just a smokescreen – a band aid for a gunshot would, as the Unified Teachers Party blog calls it (http://theutp.blogspot.com/).

Democracy does count. It is not a theoretical concept. The lack of it has resulted in bad decision-making on many levels. Fighting for it will lead to a stronger union.



Delegate Assembly Math

If you notice a preponderance of support for the UFT leadership at delegate assemblies that seems way out of proportion to the feelings of the people in your school, there is a reason. The DA has around 3000 members but is held in a room that holds just over 800. Unity Caucus members are expected to show up and many of them are required to be either a delegate or chapter leader.

With at least 1000 or more UC members, that is a serious base to start from.
Add the 89 members of the Executive Board.
Add the 300 Unity members of the retirement chapter.

There are probably 30 activist members of the opposition and maybe another 30 supporters at the DA. The rest are independents, but often actively recruited by Unity, which is always looking to keep people from drifting to the opposition.

So the leadership starts with a big majority, can dominate the discussion and can assure victory on any issue. That is why only 30% of the delegates show up regularly. If you are independent of Unity, we urge you to band together with other independents and begin to make your presence felt at the DA.

REMEMBER THE CONRACT OF 2005.
SAY: NEVER AGAIN!!!!



The following was posted as a comment to the ICE blog after the DA

MESSAGE TO NEW DELEGATES AND CHAPTER LEADERS:
DON'T BOTHER COMING BACK

The October DA is usually the most crowded because it is the first one of the year. This one in particular was crowded because so many new Chapter Leaders and Delegates who were elected last spring were attending for the first time.

The message from Randi and crew was: DON'T BOTHER COMING BACK

With probably 2800 or more delegates, instead of holding the meeting at the Marriott or in a school that could hold what is usually around 1200 people for these first meetings, they held it at the UFT in a room that legally holds around 850 people. It was reportedly so uncomfortable in there that one CL told me he went wild saying that it was a major fire trap and if the fire dept. has been called they would have shut down the meeting. If they did it wouldn't have made a difference as Randi did the usual filibuster thing.

Many people will not come back. But Unity people will. Exactly what Randi and crew want.



Joke of the Month
During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director what the criterion was which defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.

“Well,” said the Director, “we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub.”

“Oh, I understand,” said the visitor. “A normal person would use the bucket because it’s bigger than the spoon or the teacup.”

“No.” said the Director, “A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?”

An abridged version of the Lipstick on the Pig article posted on Oct. 6 is also part of the print version of Ed Notes. The pdf will be sent to my email list. If you are not on it yet, don't be left out.


For those newcomers to the Delegate Assembly, welcome.

Education Notes presents an independent view on issues affecting the educational community, especially as they relate to the actions and inactions of the UFT. It has been distributed regularly to Chapter Leaders and Delegates at Delegate Assemblies for the past 10 years. Feel free to make copies of any of the material in these bulletins for your staffs.

There have also been 10 tabloid size editions that have been produced for wider distributions to the schools. Copies of future editions (the next one is planned for late November) are available for your staffs.

Editor Norman Scott worked in the NYC school system as an elementary school teacher for 35 years. He retired in 2002 but has maintained an interest in union and educational affairs. In late 2003 he and other independents, unhappy with the direction the UFT was going in, organized the Independent Community of Educators (ICE), a caucus that aims to affect change in the UFT. ICE ran in the 2004 elections and will do so again with Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC) in the upcoming elections in the spring of 2007. See the ICE blog (http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/) and website http://www.ice-uft.org/ for details of their program.

Education Notes is independent from ICE and represents solely the point of view (often weird) of the editor.

Putting Lipstick on the Pig

The following 2 articles appeared in The Wave, Rockaway's community newspaper (since 1893). The first is the bi-weekly School Scope column appearing in the OCt. 6 edition.

The second is a news piece ("Joel Klein Meets the Press") from Joel Klein's press addressing ELA scores and appeared Sept. 29, 2006.


Putting Lipstick on the Pig
by Norman Scott

October 6, 2006

In the movie “Boiler Room” shady brokers used the expression “Put lipstick on the pig” when they dressed up lousy stocks to sell to a gullible public. Attending events put on by the NYC Department of Education are all about putting lipstick on the pig (PLOTP).
(I wrote about the bright shade of lipstick Chancellor Joel Klein tried to apply to the flat ELA scores at his Sept. 21 press conference in a separate article.)

For the DOE, it is all about spinning the many disasters that have resulted from mayoral control. They have managed to do in 30 years what decentralization could not — unite parents and teachers in an increasing understanding that there must be some major changes when the law giving dictatorial powers to politicians and the corporate non-educators they hire to run the school systems for them sunsets in 2009.

A good illustration of people’s frustration was a letter to the NY Times by John C. Fager, former education columnist for The Daily News and currently a teacher. “The mayor… has lost the support of teachers. He and Chancellor Joel I. Klein do not understand the importance of meaningful parent involvement and have alienated parents as well. Having such a person exercise overwhelming control of the school system without any checks and balances is not desirable or effective. Mayoral control, which I ardently supported, needs to be reformed.”

Fager’s letter was in response to a Times article (“Bloomberg Re-emphasizes School Control”, September 20, 2006) on the Mayor’s visit to LA where the mayor there is trying to emulate Bloomberg by fighting for control of the school system. But he has been partially stymied by a less cooperative teachers union than the UFT, which served up the school system to Bloomberg on a platinum platter.

The article stated, “Mr. Bloomberg has embarked on a high-profile offensive to make mayoral control permanent. At stake, the administration fears, is the long-term fate of his changes to the school system.”

Bloomberg and Klein are afraid that there could be a reversal of their so-called “Children First” reforms when a new mayor comes into power. Actually, they are worried that when they are gone people will unbury the lies and distortions and discover it was really Children Last, Management First as all the shennigans (can anyone spell S-N-A-P-P-L-E) of no-bid contracts, political favors no different than took place under decentralization (but with a new cast of characters) are uncovered. At least in the old days people on the gravy train were community based rather than the high end corporate pilfering going on as wheelbarrows of money are handed over to private firms with influence – the BloomKlein version of “friends with benefits.” I never thought I’d say this, but the pre-BloomKlein system was less harmful to children, parents and teachers.

At his press conference Klein started lobbying to remain as chancellor under a new mayor by talking about the wonderful stability in Boston after having had the same Superintendent for 12 years. Boston topped New York for the Broad (pronounced Brood) prize, supposedly for “an award created to honor urban school districts making the greatest overall improvement in student achievement while at the same time reducing achievement gaps across income and ethnic groups.” In reality, it is a prize for the greatest achievement privatizing as much of public education as possible while undermining the teachers union. It is hard to see how Boston could have topped New York in the latter.

Apparently, BloomKlein were so sure of winning the prize, they trucked all regional superintendents down to the award ceremony, only to end up with just a bit if egg on their faces.

The Times article quoted Bloomberg as saying at a meeting of city commissioners a year ago (my brackets), “We’ve got to find some ways [to put lipstick on the pig] between now and the end of our administration to make it so compelling [more PLOTP] that the public will demand that we continue to put the interest of our students first, and the interest of the people who work in the system or benefit from getting contracts in the system last.”

BloomKlein are putting their interests (let me repeat — Management FIRST instead of Children First) ahead of those of the children. What a joke to talk about those who got contracts in the last system when the BloomKlein regime has made the previous outlay of money to contractors look like small change — but the KGB-like hiding of information by the DOE requires a steam shovel to dig it all up. But when they are gone — it will be “Katie bar the door” time.

The damage to children from the rest of their incompetent schemes; from the one-size-fits-all curriculum (millions of dollars spent on new books by the districts were wasted as these books sit in closets); to the massive amounts spent on PD that so many teachers consider a waste (especially those 2 days before Labor Day); to the spending of $17 million to fix their own incompetent reorganization when just about anyone in the system would tell them what to do for free; to the report that the number of overcrowded classes violating the UFT contract have doubled to over 6000 — now there’s Children First for you. If there were no UFT contract (under such attack by BloomKlein) protecting children from obscene class sizes, they would cram a hundred in a class. Or maybe build more stadiums and have class sizes of 50,000.
The BloomKlein administration will need shipping containers of lipstick.

Randi Weingarten’s quote in the same Times article, considering the onslaught against the members of her union, was tepid, at best: “You talk to a student or a parent who’s in one of the new small schools, they’ll tell you that it’s fantastic. You talk to a parent of a special ed student who hasn’t gotten the placement they want, and they’ll tell you it’s terrible. You just have a whole bunch of anecdotes right now.”

With an obvious need to gear up a campaign to stop the Mayor from lobbying a continuance of the disaster known as mayoral control, Weingarten missed another opportunity to call attention to this by taking a neutral position. Why one might ask, considering the fact that for teachers this has been such a catastrophe? Is it that she put so many eggs in the basket by being a major supporter of the mayor's takeover? Or is it her expectation that in the next election the UFT's favorite candidate Bill Thompson will be the new mayor and the UFT can be back in the driver's seat.

The UFT uses a different shade of lipstick

The UFT version of PLOTP is to convince the members of the advantages of the 2005 contract, where the Open Market System and the inability of senior teachers to be given job preference has led to numerous experienced teachers being tossed from their schools and classrooms and turned in substitutes, one of the most horrifying jobs in the school system. While having full-time subs assigned to a school is not a bad idea (that was my job for my first year and a half as a teacher and I learned a lot while doing it) there has never been such a demand from the UFT. Yet, notice the tub of lipstick applied by a 6-figure salaried UFT PR person disguised as a teacher on the UFT blog:

“There is a real educational benefit in having an ATR pool — and a real benefit to teachers too. If you’ve ever worked in a school…where subs were hard to come by, you know how valuable on-site subs can be… the teachers are spared from having to take extra kids…some principals are just fine with breaking up a class, disrupting everybody else’s classes on that grade for the day…nobody ever really liked bumping. Even the senior teacher who did the bumping was often resented in the new school and made to feel unwanted. And of course, some poor new teacher down the line was out of a job. But what choice was there? Now there is a choice. On balance, I think it’s a better deal.”

This lead to a comment from blogger called “Schoolgal”: “After reading the above comments, I can only conclude that this is a sad day for our union. This has to be the worst spin ever, and tasteless at that.”

The UFT can go halfies on a couple of those lipstick containers with the DOE.

Norman Scott can be reached at norscot@aol.com




Joel Klein Meets the Press
Sees progress despite flat results

Special To The Wave by Norman Scott, Education Editor
Sept. 29, 2006

New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein held a press conference at the Tweed Courthouse on September 21 to discuss the results of the just released 2006 English Language Arts (ELA) 4th and 8th grade test scores. While not quite ecstatic, Klein seemed pleased with the results – despite the fact that they showed little or no improvement over last year.

City fourth grade scores dropped slightly, but less than the rest of the state. While Klein attributed this drop to a slightly harder test, he felt it was important that the gains of the previous years had been upheld, a point echoed by UFT President RandI Weingarten who held a brief meeting with the press on the steps of Tweed after Klein’s conference.

In 2005 when there was a big jump in 4th grade scores that occurred throughout the state, Klein and Mayor Bloomberg ignored the gains across the state as the Mayor trumpeted the results in his reelection campaign, attributing the improvement to his educational reforms. Some teachers charged that the test was extremely easy, tailored politically rather than educationally in an election year.

This year, across the grades, there was also a significant jump in NYC of Level Ones, the percent of students at the lowest grade level. That was somewhat surprising since numbers of teachers hired to mark the exams in February complained that many exams they graded as Level Ones were ordered changed to Level Twos after consultation with state officials who created the grading rubric, in essence making the results throughout the system look better than they should have been. “A child practically has to breathe on the paper and we are ordered to give them a Two,” said one teacher. A harder test and an easier rubric could theoretically cancel each other out.

At the press conference, Klein compared the NYC results with the so-called Big 4 cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers as a more apples-to-apples comparison. Last year when the Big 4 showed gains corresponding with NYC last year, Klein did not make such comparisons, claiming it was his reform package that was the difference, not the nature of the test.

The news was somewhat better for the 8th grade scores, though still dismal, as 36.6% of 8th graders scored Level 3 & 4. Klein claimed a rise of 7.1% in 8th grade scores in the four years he has managed the DOE, statistically higher than the rest of the state. The Big 4 rose 4.95 in this same period. Yet as Bob Tobias, former head of testing for DOE, pointed out, the results in 8th grade are only 1.3% higher than seven years ago – when the state first established this exam. Klein attributed the severe drop off in performance with each succeeding grade once children leave elementary school as being a national problem.

State Education Commissioner Richard Mills was quoted in the NY Times: “The overall pattern is disturbing. Literacy is the problem. This pattern is not inevitable. This pattern has to change… We still have a lot of work to do. We have to do something different. We have to change our tactics, our curriculum, our approach.”

One teacher had a different take. “They want to make is seem that scores stop dropping after the 4th grade because of the curriculum or teacher quality as a substitute for funding education anywhere near the range of the wealthy suburbs or exclusive private schools. Class sizes are often kept low to assure better scores in a scrutinized grade and allowed to rise after that. So much time is spend practicing for the test instead of actually learning to read in a meaningful way, which leads to artificially pumped up scores, much like a weight lifter pumping up a bicep for a competition. When the level of intensity is reduced in the 5th and 6th grades because they do not get as much focus as the 4th grade, the ‘muscle’ goes down as they revert to their ‘true’ reading level.”

Some teachers feel that a truer measure would be to track individual children from the 4th to the 8th grade over the years as a method of getting valid information that could be useful for them. They point to the fact that a certain number of children held over actually take 5 or more years to go from the 4th to the 8th grade and this has an impact on scores, usually skewing them upward.

Both Randi Weingarten and Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters also disagreed with Mills and Klein, saying that there is a correlation with rising class sizes after 4th grade and worse performance, a point that Klein and Mills totally ignored.

As average class sizes in NYC rise dramatically in grades 5 and up, the percent of students scoring at grade level drops —

5th grade: 56.9% at grade level
6th: 48.6% at grade level
7th: 44.3% at grade level
8th: 36.6% at grade level

While the average class sizes in NYC compared to the rest of the state are significantly higher —
5th grade: 26.6 vs. 21.9
6th grade: 27.6 vs. 22.3
7th grade English: 27.9 vs. 21.6
7th grade Math: 28 vs. 21.3
8th grade: 28

Class sizes in NYC, particularly in 7th and 8th grades, have not fallen significantly in seven years according to Haimson. But the averages tell only part of the story. “According to an analysis from the Independent Budget Office a few years ago,” Haimson said, “60% of middle school students remained in classes larger than 28, with nearly half of them in classes larger than 30. The Bloomberg administration continues to tinker at the edges by creating K-8th or 6-12th schools. But as long as our middle school students continue to be deprived of the individual support they need because of their class sizes, we will not see major improvements in these grades.”