March Delegate Assembly Notes...

... removed at the request of the author. Contact Teachers for a Just Contract for a copy: JustContractUFT@aol.com

I preserved the comments:

NYC Educator said...
It sounds surreal. The whole 55/25 thing was touted as a great victory if only we would accept the 05 contract with the sixth class, the longer day and year, the permanent building assignment, the inability to grieve LIFs, the right to unpaid suspension based on hearsay evidence, and essentially giving back every single professional gain we'd earned since I began teaching.

And we were told the reason we didn't even get cost of living for that was our noble refusal to reduce rookie salaries.

Then we found we also had to take merit pay. And then we found that we would indeed reduce rookie salaries by 1.8% for up to 27 years.

And no one told us that NYSUT has a 55/25 bill with no penalty for anyone either.

That Ms. Weingarten and her patronage mill would support the "for profit" designation and merger is simply unconscionable. Her remarks that she does not know what will happen indicate the obvious--she doesn't care what will happen.

No wonder she thinks leading the largest teacher union in the country is a part time job.


Socratic method:
I don't understand the objection to merit pay. Can someone please explain it? It seems like merit pay is a good way to get more money into the hands of the good teachers, and out of the hands of the people who you say shouldn't have ever been granted tenure.

Anonymous
Socrates, I teach in Florida where there is merit pay. Here, It is based solely on children's tests scores and gives an unfair advantage to the teachers in better areas or with the "top" kids.
It is unfair!
We need to unite for additional funds for ALL teachers!

Anonymous said...
If there is merit pay, why would any teacher take a chance and teach a difficult class? It's much easier to go to a wealthier neighborhood where virtually all the kids will pass and say how brilliant you are as a teacher.


Socrates :
Well, those are two very narrow notions of merit pay. If merit pay were based on more than just test scores, and if the part that was just based on test scores was based on gains rather than absolute scores, you'd see everyone signing up to teach the lower classes in the poorest neighborhoods.

ed notes online
1. Name some factors beyond test scores.
2. If based on gains - kids learn at different rates. Or attendance factors? Or some special ed kids? Or disruptive behavior problems? What about losses - say a kid is absent 100 days - should the salary be cut?
3. As we've pointed out - it is not whether a school is good or bad and whether merit pay will attract teachers to a school -- what about all the private school and Catholic school teachers in NYC who are lower paid -- just go to a public school and get higher pay and more benefits - few seem to do it. Why not if money would attract these teachers (who must be superior because I bet their scores are high)?

Socratic Method
1. Rubric-based principal evaluations, peer evaluations, and/or 3rd party evaluations. I'm sure smarter people than I could come up with lots of others.

2. I'm not recommending that any one factor constitute the entirety of the merit-pay evaluation. And nothing will be exactly perfect and free of defects, but just about anything will be better than the current system. The system could be fine-tuned, but yes, special ed kids probably learn slower, so adjustments to the amount of gains required for a bonus could be made. Plus, if the evaluations listed in #1 came back really positive but the group of kids happened to be particularly hard to move, the other measured factors besides the test scores should reflect that.
3. Merit pay isn't the whole answer, but it's part of the answer. Discipline needs to be improved, for sure, but great teachers can handle just about any discipline problem, so do what it takes to attract such people to the toughest schools. I'll tell you what doesn't attract such people: the knowledge that they'll have to toil away next to someone who does no work but gets more money by account of them being older.

ed notes online
It's not only not a partial answer, it is a negative. Smater people thanyou HAVE NOT been able to come up with something - what's been holding them back?

So private and Catholic schools give merit pay?

What's better than the current pay system - which by the way is in operation for the police force and many other municipal services - do you think you will be safer if cops get merit pay?

Try an experiement. Lower class sizes in a bunch of places and pay merit pay in another. The merit pay kids might even score higher on the narrow high stakes tests. See which group of kids get the broadest based education with the most knowledge.

And are you talking about a serious chunk of change like they are giving principals for getting high scores? how is that merit system working out by the way? Ask principals behind closed doors and many of them laugh.

Fred Arcoleo Hosting at WHCAP

Hey, folks!
Just a shout out to tell you I'll be GUEST HOSTING an open mic this Friday, April 11th in my home 'hood, Washington Heights/Inwood. It's called ONE MIC LOUNGE and it's sponsored by WHCAP,Washington Heights Community Arts Project, a grass-roots neighborhood arts organization that has been supporting & nurturing uptown arts and artists (visit them @ myspace.com/whcap).*
I am thrilled, excited, and just plain charmed to be lending my support to this bi-weekly event.
And it's NATIONAL POETRY MONTH! So bring your poetry and your music, your hearts, minds, and hands to the Heights this Friday! Support local artists, young & old, black, latin, & white, as they develop their craft.
I was at the debut of this series and the performers were rocking the Heights! A good deal of socially conscious culture.

If you're interested in performing, email whcap118@gmail.com to get on the list.
Since we're uptown,our theme this time will be LIFT UP YOUR VOICE!! so COME ON UPTOWN AND JOIN US!!

ONE MIC LOUNGE
Friday, April 11th
8-11 PM
Café Espresso
207th St. & Broadway
Last stop on the A Train

ONE MIC LOUNGE takes place very 2nd and 4th Friday of the month.
I hope to see you Friday...

FORWARD!!
: )
Fred
"We're turning whispers into crystals
coming out of the shadows
turning empty dinner plates into cymbals
our charge into battle"
- "Making Fire"

*WHCAP's mission: We aim to promote solidarity and uplift inner-city communities by enhancing awareness of the arts within them and creating interactive artistic experiences.

Fred Arcoleo Is the chapter leader of HS for Health Careers & Sciences on the Geroge Washington HS Cacmpus.

A Love Letter to the NY Times

Under Assualt discusses the lack of classroom teacher voices in the press.
And sends a letter to one of the eleven NY Times education reporters.

School Safety

Guest Editorial by
Sally Lee
Executive Director
Teachers Unite
April 4, 2008

School safety is largely sold to the public as the need to guard teachers from students, or sometimes the “good kids” from the other ones. Regardless of rationale, it is hard to imagine educators, students and parents demanding that the presence of poorly trained police, who are held accountable to seemingly nobody, is the best strategy for creating safe learning environments. Teachers know that the key to fostering a violence-free school is embracing the input of all youth and parents, who—if given the choice—would undoubtedly choose proactive solutions such as: small class sizes for all, rich after-school programs, innovative peer mediation initiatives, and increased support services for children with complex learning and emotional needs.

Unfortunately, New York City, like school districts across the country, continues to resist this proven model. In January, school safety agents handcuffed Denis Rivera, a 5-year-old special education student, for acting out in his kindergarten class. In October, East Side High School principal Mark Federman was arrested by school safety agents after he asked them not to humiliate a student in front of her classmates and teachers. What possible reasons are there for the virtual silence from our city government in response? The stalled Student Safety Act would require quarterly reporting by the Department of Education and NYPD to the City Council on school safety issues, including incidents involving the arrest, expulsion or suspension of students. It would provide the public with raw data to study the impact of disciplinary and security policies and practices, and encourage the crafting of more effective policies.

The act also would extend the jurisdiction of the Civilian Complaint Review Board to include complaints of misconduct levied against school safety agents, NYPD personnel assigned to provide security in the schools. More than 5,000 school safety agents are assigned to the city's schools, but there is currently no meaningful mechanism for parents and students to report safety agent abuse. The city council is in the privileged position to bring transparency and accountability to New York City school safety.

Educators often feel powerless to expose the violent dynamics between school security and students when they know blame will fall back on the staff and students in their school rather than the system that is culpable. The teachers I speak with come from the range of school situations across the city. They all name the same source causing the problems in their schools: a climate of hostility that flows directly from the top of the Department of Education to their students. The tone of this administration can be seen in recent budget cuts, ludicrous testing and evaluation methods, and biased hiring policies that favor white recent college graduates and generally penalize experienced educators. This climate is often demonstrated by an individual school’s inconsistent approach to discipline, a useless practice of punitive and ultimately damaging suspensions, and underpaid school safety agents who sometimes harass and intimidate students.

Meanwhile, there are public schools that should be studied and celebrated citywide for their success in fostering cultures where trust and respect reign. The Julia Richman Education Complex, which harmoniously houses four high schools, a middle school and an elementary school, has been cited by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative as a model in school safety that respects and honors the lives of students and staff. Mayor Bloomberg has rewarded their achievements by arranging a deal with Hunter College to buy the building and kick the schools to a largely inaccessible corner of Manhattan.

It is time for the bare bones of a reasonable safety policy to be put into place. The city should invest in the investigation of innovative and educationally-sound strategies that foster school cultures and trust among students, and it must put accountability measures into place for the police and para-police force roaming our public schools in the name of safety for all.

Bloomberg Expands Congestion Pricing Plan to Schools

Gary Babad writes on the nyceducation public school parents listserve:
For those who thought congestion pricing might be off topic on this
blog, check out this GBN News story.

Randi and Al

Update: Some audio and video of a Kahlenberg "Tough Liberal" appearance at NYU on April 1 is posted at David Bellel's blog.

Education Notes has been exploring some of the roots of the alliance of the business community and the teacher unions. It did not begin with mayoral control in Chicago or New York. It began in the early 1980's and the leading advocate of much of what we are seeing today was AFT/UFT president Albert Shanker. The monster has grown in a way that has undermined the very teacher union movement in which he played a major role.

It is no accident that Richard Kahlenberg's hagiography of Shanker, Tough Liberal, was released in this climate as a way to justify Shanker's leadership of the educational reform movement that has so devastated teacher unionism at the basic level and reversed so much of what was won. (See NYC Educator on the NY Times article on Weingarten for a superb summary of these losses.) This weekend we will begin publishing excerpts from the book as a way to examine some of the deeper connections between teacher unions and the "reform" movement and to demonstrate that the ball started rolling down the alley long before Weingarten came into power.

"What would Al do today?" This is a refrain we often hear, with the hint that we wouldn't be in this pickle if he were around. I don't buy it. I have been a critic of Weingarten, but was also a critic of Shanker for many of the same reasons. One difference between them is that Shanker dismissed critics like they were fleas, whereas Weingarten often takes things personally. After one particularly acid email exchange with her in which she practically accused me of abusing her, I responded with "It's politics, not personal. Al always understood that. You don't."

Weingarten's attitude towards criticism and her consequent attempts to make it appear she is appeasing everyone is one of her major flaws. "Like water rolling off the back" is not a phrase that is part of her vocabulary. Some say, "She just wants to be loved by everyone." Maybe. But it runs deeper than that. Shanker was not only a political animal, he was also a severe ideologue. Weingarten has a very broad, flexible ideology that always seems up for grabs. For instance, she has changed from support of the Iraq war to opposition. Shanker would still be out there. But then, the AFT/UFT is so tied to the Clintons, a relationship that was started by Shanker in the 80's when Clinton was governor, maybe Shanker would have modified his position in relation to Hillary's campaign. I somehow doubt it. (He believed the US should never have withdrawn from Vietnam.)

At the AFT, Weingarten will stay within the broad guidelines Shanker laid down and continue to cooperate with the very people looking to destroy teacher unionism at the ground level. By this, I mean in the schools. The institution of teacher unions controlled by massive bureaucracies is only being attacked by the right wing. The UFTs' partners are Democratic party people and they understand the need for the union structure to be there to help sell "the plan" and control the rank and file membership.

The AFT is in many ways is a lighter job than being president of the UFT. Doing both is a challenge. A major danger Weingarten faces is that water that just won't roll off her back.

Quack! Quack!


Ed Note: Come to hear Lois Weiner explain a lot of this background and put things into context at the Teachers Unite forum at Julia Richman HS complex (67th and 2nd Ave) on April 15 at 5 PM.

Francis Lewis HS Teacher Responds to NY Post article

Read it here.

April 2008 - More Puff From the NY Times on Weingarten

Reading Jennifer Medina in today's NY Times on Randi Weingarten's coming ascension to the AFT presidency (posted on Norms Notes) misses so many bases, we can only call it another puff piece. Oh, where to start?

You might ask: how do your charges that the Times is an agent of BloomKlein jive with a puff piece on Weingarten? Ed Notes readers are familiar with our thesis that Tweed and the UFT are both peas in the same pod and the bombast is just that. "Watch what Weingarten does, not what she says," is our mantra. The Times only talks to the top level people at Tweed and the UFT and pees on the peons.

Remember my post last week (AERAPlaning) about an AERA session with Medina, Alexander Russo and Eduwonk – Andrew Rotherham where when I asked how come we never hear the voices of classroom teachers? Medina responded, "We want to talk to teachers, but they don't want to be on the record." The entire room nodded.

So I avidly searched though the article looking for one teacher quote. I found favorable quotes from anti-union Rod Paige, Rotherham, and the best one of all from conservative Hoover Institute fellow Eric A. Hanushek "gushing with praise for Ms. Weingarten, and promising to do all he could to support her bid to become the president of the AFT. Just one thing, he added with a laugh: "I don’t know if that’s good for your image."

It's not Eric. At least among the NYC teacher corps who have been shredded during Weingarten's tenure. But it's wrong to blame Weingarten alone. Read Kahlenberg's bio on Shanker to see how Al was the architect of so much of what Weingarten is doing and will do as AFT President. He received the same kind of praise from the business community in the 80's and 90's and is considered the godfather of much of the current ed reform that is coming from Democrats.

The surface level analysis in the Times certainly missed this important point – that Weingarten's imprint on the AFT will be mostly style as she continues long-term policies. As to the point that the AFT will take a stronger stand on NCLB, which they supported all along, it has become politically untenable to Weingarten not to oppose it. Another point the Times missed – that Randi goes in the direction of the political current.

I talked at the AERA session about the numerous teacher blogs out there, many of them critical of both Klein and Weingarten. I know, I know. The view at the Times is that these blogs are six people talking to each other. But the numbers of readers is not the issue. When it is clear they are coming from the schools, they demonstrate the depth of feeling out there and represent some level of where teachers in the schools are at. Certainly, the views at NYC Educator where both he and Reality-Based Educator, or Chaz School Daze, or Pissed Off Teacher, or Have a Gneiss Day, or Under Assault etc, etc, etc, (see our blog roll) are just a few examples of the depth of hostility towards Weingarten (and Klein) by teachers.*

I avidly searched the Medina piece for any sign that she tried to talk to any of these people. I'm still looking.

* So why should the Times talk to Weingarten critics when she wins election so overwhelmingly? Again, surface reporting. A weak opposition(especially since she bought out New Action the old opposition) that gets only 20% of the people who voted is not an adequate way to express the deep-seated anti-Weingarten feelings in the schools. More important is the low vote totals Weingarten received from working teachers in all divisions despite controlling all the communications and personnel machinery of the UFT that failed in bringing out a bigger vote for her - only 22% of 70,000 voted.

The ugly numbers (rough and rounded and including the numbers from New Action - some people were confused and still thought they were opposed to Randi) in her vote totals :

Elementary: 7000 votes out of 37,000 teachers
Middle School: 1800 votes out of 13,000 teachers
High School: 2800 out of 20,000 teachers
Total Randi votes: 13000 out of 70,000, a pretty weak endorsement.

You can check out the results for yourself in our comparison chart for the 2004 and 2007 elections. By not putting in a clear successor (a major error that is one area that she has strayed from the Shanker/Feldman script) she is indicating she will run again for UFT Pres. in 2010. Maybe she will get more people to vote for her next time – absence does make the heart grow fonder. I'm missing her already.

Oh! And self-proclaimed ed coomentator/Democrat/hedge hog fund manager Whitney Tilson seems to like her. We recently had some fun with Whitney.

ATR Handbook from Under Assault

GET IT HERE

Chaz's School Daze: I AccuseThe Union Of Eroding Teacher Rights & What They Need To Do To Reverse It

Chaz's School Daze: I AccuseThe Union Of Eroding Teacher Rights & What They Need To Do To Reverse It

Mind the Gaps

Philip Kovacs at the Educator Roundtable posted this video about gaps beyond the bogus ed reformers' fav expression - Drumroll please - THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP!!!
Now for the real gap. Presenting ---

The Disparity Gap

When Eduwonks Attack

Andrew Rotherham and others exercised about some of Eduwonkette's surgical strikes at the heart of their pro-everything BloomKlein all the time, have thrown barbs at her for remaining anonymous, acting like there's no connections between the long reach of their Bloomie hero vindictiveness and someone who might one day look for a job. The fact that she asked me to check out the Rotherham/Russo/Medina/Colvin session at AERA (is Andy miffed that she may not have graced him with her presence) somehow taints her with my supposed lunacy.

Note that I am joined in my anti-everything NYC lunacy by such esteemed colleagues as NYC Educator, Leonie Haimson, Diane Ravitch and a whole core of NYC teacher bloggers who are beyond outrage at the phony ed reform movement. And probably 90% of the NYC teaching corps.


Here is Rotherham's silly post this on the Eduwonk blog.
The Wire
Not to rehash this entire debate but if Eduwonkette and Education Week want us to believe she's just some dispassionate observer of the education scene, especially the scene in New York City, so anonymous journalism is OK in this case, then it might not be such a good idea for her to use anti-everything NYC ed activist Norm Scott as her stringer...kinda, you know, blows her cover...but I did like her coverage!

Eduwonkette responded with this:
Marry Me, Eduwonk!: Boys, watch and learn from a Clinton-certified Don Juan - the passive aggressive flirting, truculent pet names, salacious locker room gossip, and wonky bickering all make me hot. Sure, you're already married - but after #9, polygamy is the new prostitution in New York.


I left this comment on his blog:
You don't read enough. I'm not only anti-everything NYC, but anti-everything Chicago and anywhere else that the phony reform movement to turn schools into factories is in operation. When it is clear that the PR expression "Children First" is really "Children Last" then you look at what's really going on behind the PR and oppose the entire program of BloomKlein.

I'm proud to be part of the NYC community where a host of respected teacher bloggers are on the same page as I am, in addition to influential parents on the NYC public school parents blog who have been persistent critics of the Bloomberg/Klein administration. Someone should point to a similar outpouring of support from parents and teachers in NYC for the mayor.

But then again, why listen to teachers and parents? You mentioned in your session at AERA that your survey shows teachers don't know much about educational policy. You know – NYC teachers are just a little busy marking those 150-170 papers a day from overcrowded classes and those 10 hour days the heroic "quality" teachers are expected to put in to save the world to have much time for these little debates.

As for Eduwonkette, whatever research she comes up with to support what we feel in our gut, is welcome. Why not take the research she puts out there and pick that apart instead of the irrelevant issue as to whether she is anonymous or not? No one seems to care except you and other pro-everything NYC people who get their words thrown right back in their faces and want to flush her out for purposes that seem awful suspicious.

Message from TAG: Weingarten - Failed Labor Leader

UPDATED April 2

The message below was sent from Teachers Advocacy Group (TAGNYC). They blame Weingarten, perhaps not realizing the longstanding position of the UFT regarding people branded fairly or unfairly as "bad" teachers. The UFT has always been concerned about being seen as protecting teachers who have been labeled as "poor" for fear of negative publicity. The Richard Kahlenberg Shaker bio reports that as far back as the 1969 contract, "...a provision for the development of objective criteria of professional accountability" was agreed to by Shanker, who said, "those who can't be improved and who are functioning at a very poor level [what are the criteria?], we're going to have to have the courage to sat that...you may be good at some other thing, but you're not good at this."

Notice the use of the word "we're." Who, me kimosabe? All in the name of what I consider a phony professionalism. Don't get me wrong. Under proper conditions, teachers could play such a role and I would be all for teachers making these decisions - if they had control of the school environment. (I'll get into what I mean by this in a future post.) But they don't. Therefore, the union's job is to defend every teacher rigorously and leave it to some other agency to take care of incompetent teachers. I would favor a body independent of the DOE and the UFT.

Again from Kahlenberg (p. 288): Peer review was common among professors, doctors, and lawyers, who police themselves.Shanker said: "it would be the first time in the history of American education that teaches would govern themselves."

How does Shanker equate peer review of teachers with these professions, which have a higher level of control than teachers ever could have? And by the way, how many doctors have you heard of being "peer reviewed" out of the profession? In the early 80's Shanker said, "a lot of people who have been hired as teachers are basically not competent." Shanker was selling peer review as an alternative to threats to abolish tenure.

The "bad teacher and the unions that protect them is the cause of all the ills of urban public ed" argument is a bogus one. How do you explain the achievement levels in right to work states like Florida where unions have so much less control?

How about your own education experience? Think of your own teachers. How many extraordinary teachers did you have? How many horrors? How inspired or damaged were you by either end of the scale of teacher quality? Somehow many of us survived the bad teachers. I saw some kids in my school have one excellent teacher after another and those that would do well did and those that wouldn't do well didn't.

Teachers guts and experience tell them this is all a crock. Some young teachers just starting out see some impact in the early years. It took me about a decade to see the long-term results as kids started drifting back as they grew up. That's how you get some perspective.

The public seems in much more danger from incompetent police, doctors, lawyers and politicians (see one George Bush) than from incompetent teachers - the worst of whom are often driven out of teaching by the daily failure of facing kids' scorn. Or they just go into administration and abuse teachers who actually can do the job.

Though at times it may make your skin crawl, I recommend reading the Kahlenberg 400 page apology for Shanker's actions. That Al Shanker and the AFT have been promoting this claptrap surprises even veteran NYC teachers. Weingarten is just following a script laid out a long time ago.

Anyway, here's the message from TAG.

Weingarten: Failed Labor Leader

Randi Weingarten is looking to her new career as head of the AFT. That much larger pool of teachers must understand what they are getting. A failed labor leader. Randi, through her position, is in an excellent position to advocate for children and to negotiate health and welfare benefits for her membership. How well she performs either of these two functions demands future critical evaluation. What we address here is her inability to function as a labor leader. Make no mistake. Teachers are members of the labor force. We are not independent contractors or consultants able to individually control our own terms and conditions of employment. And the most important condition of employment is the right to remain employed. Remain in the profession we chose. Ms. Weingarten does not want to be seen as the protector of teachers' job rights: The press and the public would label her a "protector of incompetents." But the teachers who are being forced out of their jobs- the ATRs, the whistle-blowers, the questioners, the teachers who dared to exercise their transfer rights, and the teachers who make too much money - are not incompetents. These teachers are the scapegoats being used to further Bloomberg, Klein, and yes, Randi Weingarten's political ambitions.

Weingarten has proven she does not have the stomach to advocate for teachers' rights to their jobs. She has colluded in turning NYC teachers into at-will employees. Her defense for doing so- "The UFT was not strong enough to fight."

Questions TAGNYC has for Randi Weingarten:

1. Why did you not educate your membership about the implications of the givebacks in the 2005 contract? You and your lawyers knew the possible if not probable consequences. You can't blame the membership for running to take the money since you did not do your job in educating the membership. Labor leaders don't invoke the adage "Buyer beware" when the `buyer' is the membership.

2. Will you admit that you feared for the careers of the more senior teachers in the wake of the 2005 contract and the empowerment of principals? Will you admit that you communicated this fear to your district reps? You hoped Bloomberg-Klein would go easy on the senior teachers. You lost and we lost. Labor leaders should never "depend upon the kindness of strangers."

3. Why did you not rally the members to make a stand against Bloomberg-Klein? 80,000 plus teachers in your corner and you did nothing to get them on the street (strikes weren't necessary- why not mass protests during rush hours, etc)? Oh, right, you were and are afraid of antagonizing the public. Too cautious to be a labor leader.

4. Why do you tell your members "Wait until 2009?" You see 2009 as a time when friends of `labor' come back into office. How courageous! Who can't `lead' when times are good and ears are sympathetic. You failed to lead in tough times. Too many of NYC teachers- the competent teachers- have, and are suffering the devastating consequences of your failed leadership in the run-up to 2009. Will many of these teachers be employed in 2009?

5. Why do you hide behind the 3020a process? Rather than using the law as the pretext for not intervening, why are you not railing against the farce of the 3020a process?

6. Why don't you state publicly what is said privately by district reps, chapter chair people, and OSI: Frivolous charges of incompetence, verbal, corporal, and sexual abuse are being used by principals to remove competent teachers from their schools?

7. Why have you not led your members in vocal, body-on-the line protests against the absurdity of turning competent teachers into ATRs? Why won't you admit loudly and publicly that the ATR paradigm is the road to unemployment for high salaried, competent teachers?

8. Why have you not led your members in vocal, body-on-the-line protests against the willful destruction of competent teachers' careers by incompetent, insecure, and unethical principals?

9. Who is defending your teachers in the schools? Do you know that most of your chapter chair people and district reps have abdicated the duty to advocate? Do you know of the despair being felt by teachers who know they don't have a union willing or able to defend them within the schools?

10. How do you reconcile your claim to be an advocate for the students when their teachers- new hires and senior teachers- are stampeding out of the NYC school system?

11. On a NY1 news show last week, in criticism of the budget cuts, you chastised Klein and advised him to "Show some leadership in tough times." Ms. Weingarten, how have you shown leadership in protecting your competent teachers during the tough Bloomberg-Klein times?


Teachers are urged to email Ms Weingarten with any of these or other questions. IT IS PAST TIME FOR HER RESPONSE. Not an opt ed piece but a question and answer format where Ms. Weingarten does not control the floor, or the questions asked, or the time allotted to each response.
rweingarten@uft.org

Race on the Table – Globally and Locally

Excerpt of my column that appeared in The Wave (www.rockawave.com) on April 4, 2008.

Barack Obama’s speech on race has opened up a long-needed area of discussion, not only on the national level, but out here in Rockaway. Howard Schwach’s editorial on March 28 on the Democratic primary being about race and gender touched a chord. Sure, 50 percent of white voters voted for Clinton and an even higher percentage of black voters are for Obama. We should also say that in Italian areas and Jewish areas, candidates of those persuasions also garner votes based on how people identify with them. So, yes, all political campaigns are based to some extent on race, gender and ethnics.

[Wave Editor] Howard Schwach’s presentation of how Geraldine Ferraro was forced to resign for “telling a political truth” as a comparison of Obama’s relationship to his pastor a bit simplistic. I detected something petulant in Ferrara’s position along the lines of “look at all the advantages blacks have.” Obama did address white backlash over these issues in his speech. Sometimes I don’t get it. Obama is half white and half black and somehow the white half disappears when people talk about him.

PS 106 and Race
I bring race up in a column focused on schools because of PS 106 PA President Joyce Bunch’s It’s My Turn column in last week’s Wave in which she castigated PS 106 teacher Miriam Baum (unfairly, I believe) for her recent column on the schools in which she expressed the extent of teacher satisfaction with Principal Sills. Rather than get into the details of whether UFT President did or do not call Sills a bitch at a UFT meeting (she probably did – but she’s called me much worse and recently called a high school principal in Manhattan an A-hole.) Or the so-called “slanderous” comments about Sills forging a teacher’s signature on a faked observation – which I heard about literally the day it happened and have discovered has happened in more schools than we want to imagine, especially with Leadership Academy principals, which leads us to think about exactly what kids of training they are being given.) Joyce Bunch is basically defending Sills, and that’s her right.

Of more interest to me was points of anger she expressed at racial attitudes people may have towards kids and their parents in black communities. This touched a real nerve, given the debates going on about race and how that might affect the education process or the relationships between what is often white teachers and poor people in a black community. The idea has been raised by some that black kids would be better served by black teachers. But some people in the black community have also talked about the attitudes of middle class black teachers being much closer to those of white teachers when it comes to poor kids. Results in communities with a majority of black teachers like Washington DC (overwhelmingly,) Chicago and Bed-Stuy have not been any better.

Bunch points out that the community around PS 106 is not homogeneous, stating that she is an attorney and other parents are professionals. She says, “If someone receives a welfare check, so what?” As a white, Jewish young man who entered teaching in 1967 with a whole mess of preconceptions and received a wonderful education by the children and their parents, most of whom were on welfare, I agree wholeheartedly. And I continue to learn, working with current and former teachers of various races to try to reform the system in a way beyond the current corporate, market based driven schools based on a ridiculous competitive model that unfortunately people like Joyce Bunch and Principal Sills seem to have signed onto.

When I mentioned Bunch’s article to a young activist friend of the same mixed race as Obama, she said, “You cannot write about race and schools without reading Lisa Delpit’s “Other People’s Children” which I immediately bought and will follow up with in the future.
Bunch closes her article with an invitation for me to sit down with the PS 106 PTA to create a dialogue and I would be happy to do so. (My email is at the end of this article.) But I want to get one more thing clear…

Bees in my bonnet
I put 35 years in the system as a teacher/activist/reformer in a Hispanic/Black community in which I stood with local activists against an ethnic/white dominated school board, so I have some sensitivity to the issues Bunch raises. I’m proud to have been a teacher and the overwhelming majority of my colleagues were decent, well-meaning and competent. Thus column is aimed at teachers. When Bunch says I have a bee in my bonnet about Sills that is partially due to some of the things teachers (who I respect enormously) tell me. But it also goes to the one personal contact I had with her during the massive battle over the ratification of 2005 contract that took place between the UFT leadership and groups opposed to the contract.

With the UFT doing everything it could to keep the opposition out of the schools, we went around the city with leaflets to put in teacher mail boxes to provide them with both sides of the issue. I went to a hundred schools and in just about every one I was given the courtesy of being allowed to reach out to teachers. And when a principal felt uncomfortable, they were unfailing polite (for instance the principal of PS 114 asked to look over the leaflet and then said “OK.”) Some said they would check and asked me to come back. But not Sills, who was incredibly nasty and abusive over my request, refused to listen to even a 10 second explanation and ordered me off the premises immediately. (The person who was told to escort me out was horrified and said, “Don’t worry, that’s’ the way she treats people.”) When you have contact with so many people over so many years and you meet the rarity of someone treating me like Sills did, you get an inking that something is not right. But maybe she was just having a bad day. I look forward to the dialogue with Joyce Bunch and her colleagues if they are still interested.

Ding Dong at Bayard Rustin Ed Complex

Principal John Angelet of the Bayard Rustin Educational Complex, a man publicly called an a-hole by Randi Weingarten, has resigned and will be leaving this June. Word is the UFT was on the case for a logn time but whether their pressure made a difference is not clear. Angelet was protected through thick and thin by Tweed. They will send a teacher to the rubber room for yelling at a principal but a principal can say and do anything and get away with it. Some words from teachers in the trenches:

John Angelet has inflicted harm upon excellent Teachers, Counselors, and other UFT members for almost 4 years now as Principal. He has destroyed careers, lives and caused an excessive amount of stress for all who work for him. The morale at this school is non-existent. UFT members have resorted to a "survival" mentality even if it means hurting another UFT member. John Angelet has destroyed this school, yet we still have not received our report card grade and despite numberous acts of violence committed in and outside of school, rumours of grade-changing and Regents scrubbing and an abysmal attendance record for all students, he continues to be Principal, he continues to go after those he wants to exact his irrational rage upon and he will not stop until that person is robbed of their livelihood. I have been going through this for three years and it has got to stop. I know Principals that have been removed for less, yet John Angelet is left to terrorize his staff. The events at this school are being widely publicized, the most recent being a condemning, but accurate, article in Chelsea Now.

Mr. Angelet continues to retain his job while others are powerless to save their own. We have an Assistant Principal of Guidance, Jacqueline Serna, who left her previous school, Urban Peace Academy, under allegations of misconduct.... Still she is allowed to observe and U rate Counselors who work very, very hard and have given years to this system. Urban Peace Academy is another casualty of the BloomKlein regime, yet the very people that caused its demise are simply placed in other schools instead of the rubber room, where John Angelet is assigning people at an alarming rate. The UFT has to respond to this and demand why this incompetent, possibly emotionally disturbed individual is being allowed to run this school.

John Angelet must be removed before June and he SHOULD NOT be allowed to rate anyone considering he is himself incompetent. I have never met a more vindicative, cruel, sadistic individual in my entire life.

http://programthistales.blogspot.com/
http://getupstandupforurrights.blogspot.com/

AERAPLANING - Don' Need No Stinkin' Research

...to tell me lower class sizes benefit kids.

On Tuesday, after De-Kleining Joel Klein, I headed over to the Sheraton with Sol Stern to pick up a press pass (I left out in that post that Sol was mad at me for repeating something he said in an email) for AERA (American Education Research Association) which supposedly has 16,000 people attending. I was thinking of hanging around for Diane Ravitch's presentation later that afternoon, but headed for a movie and then home to do get in some late-afternoon gardening. Reading Eduwonkette's report on Diane's presentation made me sorry I didn't stay. I wonder if 'Wonkette was wearing her mask? (How about an Eduwonkette scavenger hunt?)

Thursday, I bit the bullet and headed for AERA for the entire day, carrying the 500 page AERA guide, Kahlenberg's "Tough Liberal" and Podair's book on the '68 strike to entertain myself between workshops. As a quasi educator/blogger/reporter/ed commentator I was interested in this mouthful: Disseminating Education Research Through Electronic Media: Advice from E-Journalists.

The participants were: ed commentators and bloggers Alexander Russo (This Week in Education), Andrew Rotherham (the Ed Sector and Eduwonk), the more traditional educational journalist, Jennifer Medina from the NY Times, and Richard Colvin of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Eduwonkette asked me to cover this for her and I sent stuff over for her AERA quotes of the day. There wasn't a food fight between Rotherham and Russo – that will go on at their blogs. Is the day coming when you can throw a pie in someone's face through the computer screen?

I was interested in raising some issues related to the coverage of events in NYC, especially by the NY Times which is viewed by so many as biased for BloomKlein but wasn't sure how to raise it. I've actually seen a slightly more nuanced tone in Medina's reporting but there's so much the Times leaves uncovered. I was surprised when she said there were 11 education reporters at the Times.

You can read about the serious aspects of the session in terms of researchers and journalists (the E and traditional kind) at their blogs.
Russo reports on the session here.
Rotherham's account is here.
Moderator Paul Allen Baker's report here.

I wanted to get a few points in regarding the absence of the classroom teacher voice and how class size is addressed in terms of research.

So I made the statement about not needing stinkin' research in the context of the argument the anti-class size reduction people make that we can't lower class size until we have a quality teacher available and that resources would be better spent in recruiting and training better teachers. That reporters repeat that all the time. Less kids = lift all teachers quality is so obvious.

I said, how come the same questions are not raised about the medical field: we don't refuse to put more doctors and nurses in hospitals because some of them will not be high quality. (Did you know how many practicing doctors have not passed their certification boards?) The legal field – do we ban the guys who can't run fast enough to catch up to the ambulance? The financial field?Hoo , ha! Judges? Politicians? The ones who have the most number of affairs are the lowest quality. Or the highest. Or better yet, take NYC education journalists. Do you see a difference in quality? If you can't keep up with Elizabeth Green, you can't write a story.

Of course this comparison was totally ignored. This is about education, not the rest of the world.

How come the focus on teacher quality to the exclusion of other areas of society. Actually, I got a lot of the answers at Lois Weiner's session on Saturday about the world-wide neo-liberal attack on teachers and their unions (see Lois at the April 15 Teachers Unite forum) but will post on that soon.

What ed journalist do is narrow-casting. Like there was a UFT/coalition rally to restore budget cuts while down the street the fed was coming up with $200 billion and no one made the ironic connection.

Or report that class size research is inconclusive and ignore the fact that parents spend #30,000 for private school and parents in rich areas like Scarsdale pay so much for small class sizes.

I got a rather heated response from Richard Colvin (did I detect a note of hostility when I ran into him in the press room later?), who said just because people in Scarsdale drive a Mercedes, it doesn't mean we all have to when cheaper alternatives are available - that the best uses of resources in resource-starved urban schools may not be to reduce class size. He didn't quite say that the better use was to recruit quality teachers, but he may have been thinking it.

I didn't get a chance to say it but I guess urban kids never get to ride in the Mercedes unless they do the drug thing. What I would have said: How about giving kids in a few places the Mercedes just to see if it works. Like, instead of closing down one high school and loading it up with multiple small schools (sure, that's certainly more cost effective), try doubling the staff for a few years and see what impact that had. Why don't class size researchers suggest that as a test? Or ed reporters? Like I said, narrow casting.

Rotherham pointed to the USA Today article on class size on Monday which made an interesting observation:

Small classes work for children, but that's less because of how teachers teach than because of what students feel they can do: Get more face time with their teacher, for instance, or work in small groups with classmates... researchers closely watched students' behaviors in 10-second intervals throughout class periods and found that in smaller classes in both elementary and high school, students stayed more focused and misbehaved less. They also had more direct interactions with teachers and worked more in small groups rather than by themselves.

Duhhh! That's the point. Reducing class size from, say 30 to 20 may not lead to drastic change in teaching styles (again, what exactly are they doing in the private schools and the rich suburban districts with their lower class size - it would have been interesting if reporters and researchers reported on that) but why is that the crucial thing at this point. The USA article stated, "teachers didn't necessarily take advantage of the smaller classes, often teaching as if in front of a larger group." Of course idiot anti-teacher propagandists who claim to be teachers turn that statement into this: "The solution is not to reduce class size and thus have to hire more bad teachers, but to keep classes big, within reason, and to focus more on hiring and training good teachers."

Typical sophistry from the right wing - turning "teachers who still teach to large groups" into "bad" teachers. Like if it were a given that class sizes would be under 20, teachers would be trained to work in that environment instead of training to manage a herd.

The other point I made was how the voices of classroom teachers, the actual people who have to implement all this crap, never seem to be heard in these debates. I could almost hear a collective regurgitation at the mention of "classroom teachers." Rotherham's comment was that his survey of 1000 teachers show they are not much aware of policy issues. So what? Guess he isn't reading some of amazing NYC Teacher blogs out there.

Medina said something about 6 people talking to each other. Maybe so, but each of these 6 people work in a school and talk to people at the job. So for each blogger and their commenters, there is a multiplier effect.

But most egregiously, she said she'd love to talk to teachers but they don't want to talk to the press. Hmmm! Maybe not about an expose at their school, but about policy? I know so many people who won't keep their mouths shut. If there are any teachers out there who have gotten a request from an ed reporter at the NY Times for an opinion on DOE policy, please let me know.

I bet some in this crowd, as much of society, gag at the idea of hearing teacher voices. Read Frank McCourt's wonderful Teacher Man for a view of how low down society looks at teachers. He spent 30 years in the classroom but it took writing a best seller to be heard.

At least he taught high school. When I told the crowd I taught elementary school, you might as well have read the bubbles over their heads saying, "Those that can do, those that can't teach, especially elementary school."

A Pat on the Back

I'm not shy. If someone wants to give me more credit than I deserve, I'll take it. Ed Notes put out the press release telling the story of the closing of Brooklyn Comprehensive Night School (based in South Shore HS) in Feb., 2007. Some of the papers picked up the story. (Not the NY Times, of course.) The UFT did respond when the press showed interest and if I remember correctly, played a role in extending the school's life.

BCNHS was a school that ran from the afternoon through the evening (for kids that had jobs, etc) four nights a week.

Flo has a tribute to the founding principal of BCNHS (see picture on the right) on her blog here and here.

Malaika Holman-Bermiss (right) died in January.

Norm,

You have been the champion and hero who I have looked to this whole year for a reason to go on. You reminded me that there was still truth, honesty and high intelligence at work in the world. And you cared about me even when I could not be brave.

In the flood of people that we asked to save Brooklyn Comprehensive, you were the only person who really helped us and I will always believe that the publicity we got because you sent out the press release helped us get that extra year. 40 kids graduated in January who never would've had the chance and about that many will in June. Some kids will finish in other places, but at least they didn't give up and they got a little closer with the people they trusted most. You made that possible.

Malaika Holman-Bermiss, BCNHS' founding principal, passed away just this February. She was just 56. It was cancer. When she was 40, she was working on building her school. At the time, there was a place in the DOE to create a place where people could be creative, kids could learn and everyone could feel absolutely safe. We never had an incident that I can remember while she was principal (we had one with Grace Garafolo and a few with the current principal.) She wasn't a big woman at all or a tough one in a physical way. She just had absolute intellectual clarity. This was about helping young adults live their lives and love to learn. Anything that stood in the way was garbage. Anything that did those things was a good thing. I'm 40 and I can't guarantee that I can offer that kind of place to anyone or that kind of environment to any student and that is my failing somehow.

You gave my school an extra year and a lot of kids and their families will be forever grateful.

Flo

Founding Fathers

Here's a story for ya - Updated

UPDATED: March 30

Background for those not familiar:
Last year the DOE sent out surveys to teachers, parents and students. In schools where teachers and/or parents were critical, their report card scores were lowered. Predictably, principals have often responded, not by fixing the problems btu by using tactics to make sure the surveys this year are not critical - get teachers to do them en masse, etc. Teachers are afraid these supposed anonymous surveys can be tracked.

This email came in over the transom Friday from one of the best teachers I've known ( I point this out to show the bullshit has alienated even the best of people.) This is not the first email about teachers being pressured to fill out favorable surveys (I think Unity Must Go made a comment last week). Watch the press buy it hook, line and sinker when Klein says "See how satisfied the teachers and parents are."

Norm,

Do you know about those surveys we're supposed to complete about our school? Well, my principal was REALLY pissed last year that people didn't rave about the place so she told us a few times during meetings that we had to be very careful with what we write (maybe they should also put some thought into how to run a school if they want a favorable response from us???). OK, so this school year passes, a lot of BS went on as usual, and people are generally disgusted. Now it's time to fill in these questionnaires again. A few weeks ago, the principal wanted us to do the surveys online IN SCHOOL [in return for some perk]. "Why?" when we could do them at home in 5 minutes, but then I realized: they wanted to supervise us so we would have to write what they want!! The other day, they held a meeting and handed out the survey and told teachers to fill them out right there in FRONT of the supervisor!!! The chapter leader, thankfully, was there and protested. The rest of us got them delivered to us shortly thereafter. If it had not been for the CL, we probably all would have been similarly pressured during grade meetings. And most of us would have been afraid to protest because then we get pulled into the office and threatened individually (so there are no witnesses). At a nearby school, the principal told his teachers to fill them out and submit them TO HIM when they were done...

Is there ANY way someone can tell who submitted which responses? I am telling the truth in this survey and don't need to get caught. I am even going to skip the last question asking how many years I've been teaching so there will be NO way to identify me. But there is an id number on each form and how do we know that the administration can't track these down?

On the UFT Grapevine, is there any way people can track down who submits comments? It seems anonymous, but I don't trust anyone (except you, of course). There is a rave review about our school there and the truth needs to be told.

Students have nothing to do with their performance

TEACHER QUALITY are the buzz words – a VERY convenient way to throw teachers under the bus for all the bad things that go on in schools.

A voice in the Wilderness at The Chancellor's New Clothes makes the point of the irrationality so deftly. Why not say a sick person's recovery depends soley on the quality of the doctor (not to say that is not a factor - a factor - not the sole or even the major factor?) How responsible are the lawyers for the guys on death row? Here is an excerpt, but make sure to read the whole thing here.

I made a comment that I thought was fairly innocent. “It’s interesting,” I said “to note that all of the explanations and goals have to do with teachers.” Literally, every statement looked something like “Teachers are not teaching consistently, Teachers are not planning regularly, Teachers are not engaging students,” and so on.

I could see the change in his demeanor. “Well, who else would you hold responsible for student performance?”

I just kind of looked at him. “Well, how about students?”

It was on. I had unwittingly thrown the gauntlet.

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” he began. “Students have nothing to do with their performance.”

Huh? I looked around the class to see if the other students had heard. They looked at me blankly.